Open an American Mahjong set and 152 tiles spill out. They organize into five groups, and once you can name each one at a glance, half the intimidation of the game evaporates. Here's the full tour.
Craks, Bams, and Dots (108 tiles)
Three suits, numbered 1–9, four copies of each tile. Craks carry the Chinese character 萬 ('wan', ten thousand) — the suit's nickname comes from 'character.' Bams show bamboo sticks (the 1 Bam is traditionally a bird — don't let it fool you). Dots show circles.
When players talk hands, they say the number and suit: 'two threes Crak,' 'a pung of seven Dots.' Within a week the names are automatic.
Winds (16 tiles)
North, East, West, South — four of each, marked with their letter. Winds group only with themselves, and entire hand families on the year's card are built around them. East also names the dealer position, which rotates each game.
Dragons — and the Soap (12 tiles)
Red Dragon (中), Green Dragon (發), and the White Dragon — the framed blank tile every American player calls the Soap. Each dragon belongs to a suit for card purposes: Red with Craks, Green with Bams, Soap with Dots. The Soap pulls double duty: on many cards it also stands in as the zero in year-number hands.
Flowers (8 tiles)
Eight flower tiles, fully interchangeable with each other in the American game. Many card lines require one or more flowers, so treat them with respect — a casually discarded flower is a classic beginner tell.
Jokers (8 tiles)
The wild cards. A joker substitutes for any tile in a group of three or more — pung, kong, quint — but never in a pair, never as a single, and never in the Charleston. If an exposed group on any rack contains a joker, a player holding the real tile may swap it out on their turn and take the joker for themselves.
Count the jokers you can see the way card players count aces. Eight exist; every one in an exposure or dead in the discards changes your odds.