The Reyes Report

Well, I am on the quest for after-work company. I also have a personal mission while in Singapore to learn how to play mahjong. Seems like a good combination, right? Not necessarily.

Thanks to Shelly I have a set of tiles, but no one to join in a game and no knowledge to teach new players. I know, I know .. there are 8,000 Web sites that are more than happy to provide me the rules, but I want to learn by doing, not by reading and trying to teach myself the intricacies of strategy. So … here I am. Asking around to see if people a.) know how to play and b.) want to teach me.

Finding #1. Lots of people “know” how to play.

Finding #2. Even more don’t or don’t remember or don’t want to admit it.

Finding #3. Other people want to learn.

Finding #4. NO ONE (this is an absolute in my research) plays for fun. It is played for money. Only for money. And your grandmother, aunt, elderly neighbor, officemate, housekeeper, etc. will have no problem cleaning me out .. I mean “teaching” me how to play.

Finding #5. No one wants to teach you. Especially in a friendly, open-hand, no money-down game. No one. (See above finding #4 about how people typically “learn.”)

Finding #6. I am now more determined then ever to learn this game. None of these results dissuades me. None. Sorry. Try again.

Ok … so, after exhausting friendly banter with people from work, I decided to try a new route … the bridge between an Internet chat-room and meeting real, live people. It’s called “meetup.com” and it’s a listing (organized by city) of people with various interests and activities, and events they arrange. Conrad and I have explored the NYC Hikers meetup, so I thought to myself, self, maybe this is a good way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone … find a MahJong meetup in Singapore, and meet some new people.

Well, strike #2. There isn’t one. Sure, there are people interested in playing (for money) who throw out all kinds of words with definitions I don’t know (like “kaki” or “3/6 5/1″).

No worries. Meetup had a suggestion. How about the Boardgamers group? Apparently some people there have similar interests as I do (says the search engine). Hmm. I’m reluctant but willing. You say “Let’s meet and play boardgames” and I see visions of costumed 40 year-old basement-dorks playing dungeons & dragons until their mom calls and tells them to come home for dinner. But, on the other hand … Odds of there being people there? Very high. Odds of people there who know how to play? High. Odds I have something in common with said people? Well, I can be a dork, so we’ll give it a “highly-likely there may be one or two.”

That was enough for me. So after a few e-mail exchanges I got the information for Sunday and off I went. There’s an area of Singapore called “Holland Village” or “The Village” for those in the know (also seen as “HV” but I think that’s a bit too dorky to be said out loud). Well, this was “behind” that. Now, “behind” is generally a good direction if you know which part is the front. [Note to self: never tell visitors to NYC that we are meeting in a restaurant "behind" the East Village. It's just plain silly.]

So…. after walking around for 20 minutes on one of the sunniest, blazing hot, humid days we’ve had here, I finally get lost enough to find the place (really). I started the day looking kind of cute, but ended up dragging into the place like a wet dog. Oh well. I’m not sure how good you need to look in a Boardgaming Coffee Shop anyway.

And that’s where we were. 100s of boardgames everywhere. Ok, if we were still living in Raleigh, I would drag our friends here at least twice a year — it’s a good business model. You rent a table like you do at a pool hall. The cafe owns a few hundred games and serves food and soda. It’s very wholesome. (Plus I loved the cafe’s marketing … the menu was printed on a monopoly board, very clever.)

We didn’t play Mahjong, but I did meet people who could. And though no one was dying to teach the American blonde how to play, there were some half-hearted “maybes” that I might be able to exploit.

So … moral of the story. It was fun. The people were nice. And I *may* go to another one (though for the record 5 hrs of boardgames played with people who take this as serious sport can be draining).

Now, I know you want to know what the people were like. I’m saying they were nice and fun first so this doesn’t come out wrong. But … the world-ranked (really) #7 Scrabble champion was there, just returning from the 2007 play-offs in Mumbai; apparently a guy who normally comes wasn’t there — but he owns something like 3,000 board games; and there was a 10 year-old who was beating everyone at some of the most strategic games I’ve ever seen. About 40 people in total. What did we play? This was no monopoly or Cranium crowd folks. They played games I’ve never heard of: blokus*, cartagena*, niagara, ticket to ride*, cleopatra, ingenious*, … and so many more. Anyway. It was fun. It was full of characters — but good ones. And hey, it’s fun to exercise that dork muscle every once in a while, right? (But no worries, I’ve no plans to attend any meetings to study the Elvish Language or reminisce about Elvis , a girl has her limits.)

(*Note: These games would make interesting Christmas gifts for the gamer in your family. But warning, many of these games have small parts and may not be good if you have small children.)