A Quick Look at Mahjong around the World: Vietnamese Mahjong

Vietnamese Mahjong definitely beats out any other style for the greatest tile count. Even American Mahjong can't compare to its massive tile count: 160 for classical sets, and 176 for more modern versions. In order to reach this ungodly amount of tiles, the Vietnamese have included significantly more bonus tiles and Jokers than any other style!

In addition to the four flowers and four seasons, there are eight special bonus tiles that were apparently once called 'fairies', but are usually translated as 'kings' and 'queens' now. Much like how there is essentially no difference between flowers and seasons in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong, the kings, queens, flowers, and seasons are almost interchangeable in Vietnamese Mahjong.

The four kings (top) and four queens (bottom). The character on the kings means 'emperor' and on the queens means 'empress'. Image taken from http://www.sloperama.com

So from the 16 bonus tiles, along with the regular 28 honor tiles and 108 suited tiles, we have a total of 152 tiles. The other 8 (or 24 for modern sets) all come from special Joker tiles!

Unlike in American Mahjong, where a Joker can replace any tile in a meld, the Joker tiles in Vietnamese Mahjong have very specific purposes! Also, just like how flowers and seasons are treated as separate groups for the purposes of scoring, the eight Joker tiles are separated into two groups of four. There are four Blue Jokers as follows:

• The Emperor Joker can be used in place of any other tile, including a bonus tile.
• The Dots Joker is treated as any dots tile.
• The Bamboo Joker is treated as any bamboo tile.
• The Characters Joker is treated as any characters tile.

And four Red Jokers:

• The Suited Joker is treated as any dots, bamboo, or character tile (or bonus tile, according to some rules).
• The Wind Joker is treated as any wind tile.
• The Dragon Joker is treated as any dragon tile.
• The Flower Joker is treated as any bonus tile (which would usually be your own, since that's the only one that gets you points).

Images of the eight Joker tiles in order. The characters read, in order: altogether, barrel (dots), woven thread (bamboo), ten-thousand (characters), combined, happiness, element (dragon), flower. Image taken from http://www.sloperama.com

In classical sets, one copy of each Joker is used. In modern Vietnamese Mahjong sets, three copies of each Joker are used. However, one copy of each Joker is drawn with a circle around the Chinese character on the tiles, one set is drawn with a rectangle around the character, and one with a diamond around the character.

• No dead wall is used.
• You must reveal and replace all bonus tiles dealt to you in your opening hand, just like in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong. However, flowers drawn during later turns can kept in the hand and discarded or claimed during any of your later turns.
• If you discard a bonus tile (including the Flower Joker) while any other player is waiting, that player may treat your bonus tile as her winning tile, and win off of your discard.
• When replacing bonus tiles during your opening hand, you may (but do not have to) reveal any Jokers in your hand and treat them as bonus tiles. During later turns, you may only treat the Emperor Joker and the Flower Joker as bonus tiles.
• There is a huge bonus payable to a hand that wins without any Jokers, bonus tiles, or honor tiles called the 'No Flowers, No Leaves' hand. However, the rules around this hand seem to be incredibly complicated and obscure (you must not have any bonus tiles in your opening hand, you must immediately discard any bonus tiles you draw from then on without adding them to your hand, there are special bonuses for discarding all four Blue Jokers, or for discarding six bonus tiles...), so I cannot provide a full description of this hand.
• Discarded tiles are thrown randomly into the discard pile, like in Hong Kong Old Style mahjong.
• Discarded Joker tiles can be used to create open melds, or for another player to declare a win.

Unfortunately, the rules of this style seem to not be very easy to find on the internet, so I cannot provide a more detailed perspective on scoring than 'it seems to be identical to Chinese Classical scoring, except only the winner's hand is scored (in most rules, but the little information I can find on this is inconsistent)'. In addition, you also double the points your hand scores for every set on king tile and queen tile you have with a matching number (even if it does not correspond to your seat position).