'Pinyin', the original and common other Chinese/Japanese name for the tile game Mahjong means?
Mahjong during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Today, it is a favorite pastime in China and other Chinese-speaking communities. In 1895, British sinologist William Henry Wilkinson wrote a paper which mentioned a set of cards known in central China by the name of "ma chioh", literally, hemp sparrow, which he maintained was the origin of the term Mahjong. He did not explain the dialect of the originator or region specific etymology of this information. By 1910, there were written accounts in many languages, including French and Japanese. The game was imported to the United States in the 1920s. The first Mahjong sets
Japanese Mahjong of [number] + [suit], the numbers being Japanese pronunciations of the corresponding Chinese words. Many basic rules of mahjong apply to the Japanese variation. Players can make a meld by calling for another player's discard. They reveal the meld on the table and then make their own discard. Calling for another player's discard makes the meld and the hand open. When a winning tile of a closed hand is a discard, the meld including that discard is also considered open, while the hand is still regarded as closed. The calls operate exactly the same as any variation of mahjong, except