I played Mah Jong a few times, starting off slowly and finishing stronger. I generally felt like I was more in control of what I was doing and knew what was going on. I was aware of the wind of the round and my own wind at all times. I made some mistakes but I knew what they were. I also made some big scores, the best of which was a $45 hand - the last hand of the last game I played. Unfortunately, with typical facetiousness, I lambasted the player to my left for being unfriendly - as in not feeding me any good tiles. I was joking. I ended up offending the poor lady, a family friend I'd just met. Later, when Dodo's mom complained to her about it I was once again reminded that my serious, fierce face doesn't lend itself to dry jokes with strangers...
2 comments:
The culture experts do say that when you learn to joke properly in another language/culture, you're really proficient. I hope the lady will forgive you.
@Sal, I got a lot of things working against me. I have an angry face, I don't smile a lot, I'm not humble or modest and I like to joke people. It will be a long uphill battle to fit into the asian side of things.
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