Diary of the World Mahjong Championship 2007 - Diary of the World Mahjong Championship 2007
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- Created on Monday, 05 November 2007 09:22
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 November 2012 18:00
- Written by Martin Rep
Welcome in Emei
EMEI SHAN, November 3, 2007 - First of all: it is an absolutely incredibly venue the Chinese hosts of the World Mahjong Championship have organised the tournament in. When you walk through the corridors and the halls of the Hong Zhu Shan Hotel in Emei, some 100 kilometers from Chengdu, it feels as though you are walking through the palace of Versailles in France.
It's all very impressive. E.g., yesterday's meeting of the General Assembly of the World Mahjong Organization, which took place in a large conference room, with the flags of all participating countries. It looks like a meeting of the United Nations, someone whispered.
The meeting was presided by Mr. Jiang, Secretary-General of the WMO, and the two vice-presidents of the European Mahjong Association were invited to sit next to him. So there we were: Ms. Tina Christensen from Denmark, and Martin Rep of the Netherlands.
Most important topics of the meeting were the WMO-statutes, and the question: when and where will the next world championship take place? WMO (in other words: the Chinese) is willing to organize the next event, and they propose this should take place in 2010. After that, it could be held any other year.
A great challenge for the EMA, I could say to Mr. Jiang, on behalf of the European countries. After all, we have proven that we can organize great tournaments: Nijmegen 2005 and Copenhagen 2007 were magnificent competitions. But a world championship, that's just not the same as a European championship. So we asked the Chinese if we can have three months to do more investigation - which was approved by the Assembly.
And after some more questions, "meeting is closed", said Mr. Jiang, and we all clapped our hands and went back to Building Number Three, where there is a nice mahjong parlour.
