Dragon Tiles
‘Dragon’ tiles were given their classifying name by exporters keen to add to the exotic appeal of mahjong. In China several different stories exist as to their meaning and the rationale for their appearance within the game.
One links mahjong to the popular card games which drew on the success which came from passing the Imperial Examinations to become a Court Official. In this story the Red Dragon symbolises passing the examination, the Green Dragon the fortune this brings and the White Dragon the incorruptibility of a honourable official.
Another allies the three tiles with key Confucian values: the Red signifying benevolence, the Green sincerity, and the White filial piety. These connections of mahjong with Officials and with Confucian values has not been limited to ‘dragon’ tiles, as older sets have been described by their collectors and in literature as containing tiles with similar associations. For example, the Sheng Xuanhuai set, dated to 1884, has one of its suits as the ranks of officials (pin) rather than the more usual wan or characters. It also has no wind tiles, but does have four sets of four tiles that carry the names of the Confucian values of benevolence (ten), justice (yi), righteousness (dao) and virtue (de). The Red and Green Dragons are replaced by tiles with characters of signifiers for the Emperor and his wife, Chi Long (dragon) and Bi Feng (phoenix).
There are several different forms of the ‘dragon’ tiles. The Red Dragon, or Hong Zhong, is usually depicted by the character for Centre 中 in red. Where the tile includes a Romanised letter to help identification by non-Chinese players, the letter is a C. This could be to reflect the Cantonese name for the tile (Chong) or the pre-Pinyin, Wade-Giles romanisation system for mandarin (chung).
The Green Dragon, or Fa, is also usually depicted by a character 发 in green. Often said to mean to get rich, the character actually means to make or to send, the implication being that it’s shorthand for making or creating wealth.
The White Dragon, or Bai Ban, was, in the earliest sets, a blank tile. It came to be depicted with a border in black or blue so that it visually resembled a white board rather than simply a blank tile. Romanised additions were either a ‘B’ for bai (pinyin mandarin) or bok (Cantonese) meaning white or a ‘P’ for pai (Wade Giles romanisation of mandarin). Some sets have also been found with the character for white 白 in the centre of a blank or bordered tile.