Editor Martin Rep is playing mahjong with transparent tiles.

You put the tiles in a card box. First East puts his hand in it and grabs four tiles. You’re South, so now it’s your turn. Then come West and North. We trust each other, so we are pretty sure that you are not trying to use your fingertips in order to determine what tiles you are taking.

This card box is called ‘the wall’. Now East grabs another tile and puts it on the table: the Dora Indicator! It’s Dots 5, so Dots 6 is the Dora.

Since we are just playing a friendly game, there is no referee around and we have decided that East can grab thirteen more tiles to make out the Dead Wall. Usually this should be fourteen tiles, but we have already decided that Dots 5 is the Dora Indicator, and the indicator of course also belongs to the Dead Wall.

We are curious about Easts hand. We watch it closely. Well, he has two Red Dragons, and at least five Bamboo tiles. Probably he will go for Honitsu.

You still with us? It is the day after the Cherry Blossom Tournament. All mahjong players have left Nijmegen. Only our friends from The Hague and Tom from Finland are still here, at our place. Rain is pouring down. So now we are playing Washizu mahjong.

Washizu mahjong??

Yep.

Why don’t you try the excellent search function of this website (the little box in the upper right corner of this page) and then you will learn soon that Washizu is thrilling new version of riichi mahjong - as if riichi mahjong is not thrilling enough already.

In Washizu, you play with a set in which only one of each specimen of the tiles is opaque. The three other tiles are just as transparent as if you are going through a body scan at the airport.

So your hand has, let’s say, nine tiles your opponents can see just as well as you can. Only the remaining four are for your eyes only.

A friend from Japan recently sent me a special Washizu set. Yesterday, at the Cherry Blossom Tournament, Gemma brought one from the UK. And in Holland, Daja Mahjong is selling Washizu sets.

A new mahjong hype? Perhaps. At least, a number of mahjong lovers have bought Washizu sets. We show it to our friends, and they are amazed. ‘Can you actually play mahjong with a set like that?’

Frankly - we have no idea. But today, at my place, we are going to try. With our friends from The Hague and Finland.

But you cannot build a wall with transparent and opaque tiles. Not everything in this game should be revealed. So we put the tiles in a card box which Mrs. Rep found somewhere on the attic. Okay, the card box is a bit high, it’s not so easy to distinguish the tiles which Tom, who is sitting opposite me, has discarded. And the tiles that Marjan and Maurice, sitting on my Upper and my Lower hand, are even harder to tell.

This is going to be a hard game! Will it really look like mahjong? I am very curious. After all, after learning about Washizu mahjong by watching the Akagi-cartoon, I have decided to organize a Washizu tournament for a number of friends. No, please do not apply for it, it’s fully booked already.

Only thing I have yet to do: thinking out the rules. Washizu mahjong may look like riichi mahjong, it’s something else. I’ll keep you posted, Maurice is discarding a Red Dragon right now.