Culture and Leisure
Joy, luck chase in mahjong clubs
Other mahjong fans say playing in a
mahjong club means they will not receive
complaints from neighbours about their
noise.
"If I played mahjong at home at night, my neighbours would complain that I was being noisy," 30-year-old Lui Yuet-ting said after playing in a mahjong club overnight for 12 hours.
Staying in their private mahjong rooms, customers can also order food, drinks and other items like boxes of tissues or pots of tea by simply pressing a button in the room or making a phone call to the reception desk. They will be served at once.
Joe Fung Tak-wai, Kennix Wong
Wai-lee and Kenny Lung Tze-man, all in
their 20s, who were waiting in a mahjong
room for their friend to turn up to start
the game said they were satisfied with the
service. "The waitresses would not bother
you and they are nice," Fung said. Wong
agreed and added: "Yes, and they would
refill our tea pot regularly."
Some clubs provide packages including food and drink, which cost between HK$300 and HK$600. One of the most popular packages is a set dinner with four dishes and one soup plus 10 hours of playing. Another package targeting young people offers a hamburger, a pizza roll, potato chips and a can of coke plus six hours of playing, which costs about HK$400 to HK$500.
But there are customers who just go to mahjong clubs for friends' gatherings. "Young people usually come with a large group of friends, but they seldom eat here because they only want to chat and play with their friends," said Ada Wong Yin-ling, sales manager of Gold Harvest Club, which has an interior decor similar to that of a traditional Chinese restaurant and is located on the sixth and seventh floor of a commercial building in Nathan Road, Mong Kok.
To suit the taste of young people and to attract more customers, the club has installed a television in each private room so that customers can watch soccer games or other TV programmes while playing mahjong. A computer is also put in the lobby for public use.
The mode and rules of playing in
mahjong clubs are very different from
that in traditional mahjong houses, which usually have customers who are in their
40s, according to Lai Chi-fuk, manager
of Kam Wing Mahjong Co. in San Po
Kong.
Lai said in his parlour, unless the
cusomters come in a group of four, each
of them had to play with people whom
they did not know. "We will arrange them
to different tables. They cannot play
together," Lai said.
Mahjong rooms in KC.
City are designed by hotel
designers to make them look modern and trendy.