“My favorite thing about mah- jong is that you’re creating order out of chaos.” “I just kept saying, mah what? Mahjong. I couldn’t even pronounce it,” Couch said. She initial- ly thought it was some form of bridge. What changed her mind wasn’t an explanation of the game. Dyleski showed her the tiles and mats. “I latched. I did,” Couch said. She took a lesson, was hooked immediately and soon found herself playing every day. Nancy Dyleski learned mahjong on a seven-day family riverboat trip through Europe. Her mother and sister were already obsessed with the game and made her play. She came home converted and wanted Melanie Couch at the table.
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There is a word for part of that pull: neuroaesthetics, the study of how beauty and sensory experience engage the brain. Mahjong gives Couch and Dyleski plenty to point to: the col - or and pattern of the tiles, their click against the table, the work of recognizing a hand and the simple act of looking up from a phone. “I’m tired of scrolling. I feel like it is such a waste of time,” Dyleski said. For all the patterns on the table, the real draw is sitting around it. “The more, the merrier. It only makes it more fun.” “
Did you know? The name mahjong traces back to a Chinese word for “sparrow.” One tra- ditional explanation compares the clatter of shuffled tiles to birds chat - tering together.
Top Left: Guided play keeps newer players moving when they get stuck. Bottom Left: Many regulars first arrived knowing no one else in the room.
FALL 2026
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