The World Mahjong Championships Has Arrived, 80 Foreign Mahjong Players to Compete With You

Mahjong Also Has Its Own World Championships

Last Year It Was Held in Netherlands

Most people might have taken Mahjong as a casual strategic game, but now it has formed its own world-class organization like other games, making “The 3rd Mahjong Championships” held in Qianjiang, Chongqing in October 25 possible and not surprising.

The game was held by The World Mahjong Organization, an open NGO founded in October 2005, by 8 countries: China, Japan, the US, and other European nations. Up till now, 30 countries and regions have joined the organization—the leading authority on the activities, competition, training and exchange of Mahjong. In 2007, The World Mahjong Organization held the 1st World Mahjong Championships in Emeishan, Sichuan province, attracting 144 players from 17 countries and regions. The 2nd Championships was held in the Netherlands in 2010, by The European Mahjong League; 208 players from more than 20 countries and regions competed in this championship.

Although it is termed “world-class”, judging from its influence and the irregularity of the championships, the organization is still developing. One interesting thing and perhaps owing to it being the place of Mahjong’s origin, the previous two first place individual and team winners were both Chinese contestants.

Foreign Mahjong Players Also Came to Participate

Majority of Netizens Root For The Students’ Team

188 players take part in the game, among them are 80 foreigners and some students of Peking University and Tsinghua University.

It is reported that the sign up process of Chinese candidates for the Championships started in May this year. Candidates had to pass an elimination round either online or offline, a semi-final and a final in order to be qualified for the World Championships. Meanwhile, the Organizing Committee will pick the most representative players to compete in the Championships, so as to promote a healthy, scientific and friendly Mahjong culture. Previously, Tianjin, Hefei and other places have held their regional qualification games. And almost 10,000 players competed in the Chongqing regional qualification games, which took about 9 days before there was a final result.

Because of the regional qualification, the Championships attracted a lot of foreign players as well as the previous two games. In addition, the intercollegiate qualification games held in Beijing and Tianjin also attracted college students from Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University, among whom 4 won the qualification for the world games. “Obviously, college-student Mahjong players are joining the games for they take Mahjong as a cultural heritage, because winners of the games will not be awarded any prize money.”

Would joining The Mahjong Championships be a bad influence to students who are supposed to focus on their studying? On October 19, a portal site ran a poll on “What do you think of college students taking part in the World Mahjong Championships?” The option “I think it’s okay for students to join the games and I think Mahjong and other card games as well are casual games. Plus students have their right to decide whether to join or not” had got the most supporters, which was 40.37%.

An Emphasis on Exchange and No Prize Money

Anyone Who Completes the Competition Can Get A Medal.

Even though the Championships have already been held two times, none of the winners have been awarded any prize money.

Jiang Xuanqi, Chief Secretary of the World Mahjong Organization had made it clear that Mahjong is a cultural heritage, so “no prize money” is the basic premise of the championship. As learned by this reporter, each player will be awarded a medal by the Organizing Committee. Each medal has its own code number and says “The 3rd World Mahjong Championship” on it, which is very memorable. What more, each country or region that has joined the games will be presented an automatic Mahjong table, and players with exceptional results will be presented a set of specially made Mahjong set.

“The Chinese culture, with Mahjong being one part of it, is very broad and profound, but many people enjoy playing Mahjong without understanding the cultural background behind the game.” Jiang Xuanqi explained that the reason why they hold such a championship is to give a chance for more people to get a deeper understanding of the game of Mahjong. And the fact that so many players participated and supported the games, even without any prize money provided, is the best positive affirmation of Mahjong culture.

It is learned by this reporter that before the World Championship, The World Mahjong Organization held a world Mahjong referee training program, and 47 foreigners took the program and examination. This year the Championship will help to give Mahjong players titles of different “grades” similar to the grades of the game of go and Chinese Chess. Players who are up to the “Mahjong Grade Qualification System” standard can all apply for and be given certificate of Mahjong Grade.

Why China CCTV Coverage of Hurricane Sandy Should not Be Criticized | English China

The following post was amongst the hottest today on the popular Chinese Sina Weibo microblogging service, with over 51k reshares/forwards and 13k comments spanning over 650 pages so far and climbing rapidly…

Comments:I think we shouldn’t criticized CCTV for its extensive coverage of the America’s Hurricane Sandy situation. So many children and relatives of government leaders, including the children of the various big and small leaders within CCTV itself, are all studying abroad or working in America, with New York and the East Coast further being where many leaders’ children are concentrated. With a hurricane this big, if CCTV doesn’t report it, would you have the leaders go watch English CNN? The leaders are also parents, with the long-suffering heart of parents, right? What CCTV is doing is a good thing.

There are a lot of very outstanding Chinese people and America has the world’s best higher educational institutions, the largest economic system, so Chinese-Americans excelling there is a good thing. Even if their parents used to be corrupt officials or unscrupulous businessmen, of bad backgrounds and guilty of serious wrongdoing, if their next generation being in American can be infected by the ideals of freedom and democracy, then use their various efforts to give back to China, that too is a good thing…

China Kindergarten Teacher’s Photos of Her Abusing Children Exposed | English China

Numerous Photos of Zhejiang Wenling Female Kindergarten Teacher Abusing Children Exposed

Yesterday (October 24) on Weibo, a picture spread that chilled many netizens’ hearts: A small child being lifted off the ground by the ears by a kindergarten teacher wearing a smile on her face. And this was a real scene that happened in the Blue Peacock Kindergarten on Chenxi Street in Wenling of Zhejiang province. Afterwards, local relevant government departments immediately investigated and on the same day fired this teacher.

In the picture, the female teacher wears a smile on her face, her two hands separately gripping the boy’s left and right ears, lifting the boy up with his feet 10cm off the ground, his ears twisted out of shape, and the boy’s mouth open and wailing from the pain. The police very quickly found out that the female teacher in the photo is a Wenling Blue Peacock Kindergarten Junior Class 2 teacher named Yan Yanhong. Yesterday afternoon, Yan Yanhong accepted an interview at the kindergarten. She was still wearing that leopard print coat, and seemed a little horror-struck. Up close, she also seemed to be trembling a bit. When asked “why did you pull the boy’s ears and have someone take a photograph”, Yan said, “it was for fun”.

Angry netizens even human flesh searched her ID number, cell phone number, QQ account number, home address, what school she graduated from, etc. This reporter visited her QQ Zone [a Chinese blog service] and discovered that there were as many as 702 photos related to the kindergarten, and amongst them two were of children’s mouths sealed with packing tape. The description of one of the photos was “deserves it/that’ll teach you”. At the time, a netizen had posted a comment suggesting that she “delete these photos”, with her she replying: “it’s okay/no worries”. Her QQ Zone also had three photographs of children tossed into trashcans, and multiple photos of children kissing each other and having their pants stripped off while dancing. An ID and other photos uploaded to the QQ Zone could prove that this QQ number indeed belonged to Yan Yanhong. Last night, this QQ number had already been hacked.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, where a boy’s mouth has been taped shut, captioned: That’ll teach you. A netizen warned: “Better delete this photo, this is abusing children, and it’s not going to be good if its seen.” The female kindergarten teacher replied: “Don’t worry, it’s fine.”

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: I threw him in.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: That’ll teach you to behave.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: The consequences of not behaving.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: That’ll teach you to behave.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: Didn’t behave.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: Standing punishment

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: The auntie had them to do this

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: Two 13

Image is a screenshot of Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone.

Image is of a photo on Yan Yanhong’s QQ Zone, captioned: A corner of the classroom.

Pakistani Yao tribe: the last of the sea nomads | English China

The Malay Aboriginal Pakistani Yao is a sea nomads Earth. Hundreds of years, from generation to generation in the waters between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, mainly pearls and sea cucumber fishing, and gathering for a living, rarely set foot in the land. Now, many Pakistani Yao people are forced to settle the land, traditional fishing nets, fishing line and the homemade spear fishing tools are also largely replaced by cyanide and explosives, the continuation of the way of life for centuries challenges. Pictured in Indonesian waters, a bar Yao boy is playing with his pet shark. Yao children born on board the bus have been rare, but the sea is still their favorite playground.

The Coral Triangle is a non-fishing areas, like limestone karst maze. Local communities under the protection of international help this sea patrols. Coral Triangle area of ​​about 6 million square kilometers, surrounded by Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands, living with about 75% of the world's coral reef species, as well as thousands of whales, sharks, turtles and tuna stocks, which many of the critically endangered species.

The waters of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, the several Pakistani Yao people sitting on them hand-made traditional wooden boat lepa lepa. Now, more and more bar Yao people give up their traditional nomadic life to settle in the countryside, but spent most of the time, a lot of people are still at sea.

Bar Yao men Moen Ranke tire rod wrenched off the coral reef on the clams.

Indonesian waters, one the Yao men hunting of Pakistan in the seabed.

With a freshly caught octopus ,octopus experts Stuttgart Meon swim back to his boat.

Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, a bar Yao girl countenance seawater leave the village, collecting sea cucumbers and shellfish.

One week picture Picks (10/20/2012--10/26/2012) | English China

Local Time October 23, 2012, on a market near the capital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the crane will be a be hanging on car camels for Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha, Muslims slaughter a variety of animals, including camels, including celebration of the end of hajj. (Fahad Shadeed / Reuters)

Local time on October 20, 2012, in Phuket, Thailand, the annual Vegetarian Festival organized believers to participate in the street parade, mouth puncture metal. Vegetarian Festival in Thailand (Phuket Vegetarian Festival) stems from the traditional culture of China, held in the Chinese lunar calendar September, faithful to the perforations in the body with a sharp object, highlight the devout faith of the gods, and believe this their suffering behavior can purify the body and mind. (AFP)

Local time on October 23, 2012, Wellington, New Zealand, Maori welcoming ceremony in the Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on the show. (AFP)

October 25, 2012, Henan Linzhou, the tourism sector in the Taihang Mountains fitted towering "ladder", the convenience of the tourists mountaineering. A (Bi Xingshi / Oriental IC)

October 19, 2012, Yan'an, Shaanxi red tourism hot, the visitors put on "Red Army clothing, reproduction year" Defending Yan'an "scene. (Ng Han Guan / Oriental IC)

October 20, 2012, Beijing, Fragrant Hills Red Leaves Festival bus station, North palace, the Summer Palace, tourists thronged the bus. (Why photo)

Local time on October 22, 2012, Boca Raton, Florida, Lynn University student Matt Alleva to participate in the third presidential debate before the pool party, sets flag design spare tire floating in the water. (Eric Gay / Oriental IC)

Local time on October 24, 2012, the Iowa, Obama eyes wide and supporters greet. (Charlie Neibergall / Oriental IC)

October 21, 2012, held in Tianjin, China pole dancing national team trials, three girls and a boy of four players eventually come to the fore, they will represent China in the World Pole Dancing Championships. (Figure / rivers)

October 19, Shanghai, China Eastern Airlines, East China provinces and one city-oriented unified recruit 800 flight attendants, interview Indoor Stadium Shanghai Xian Xia Road Shanghai Engineering and Technology, both candidates in the college students, also hadhigh sister (high iron attendants). "In order to fulfill their stewardess dream candidates the whole family out to the paternity test, the candidates came all the way from the provinces. Pictured wait for the interview candidates. Figure / black bread

October 19, 2012, in Dubai, the tallest building in the world Burj Khalifa (Burj Khalifa) top of the stands fog end. This time of year, when the temperatures begin to drop, moisture and cold air meet, it will generate a billowing fog. (Bjoern Lauen)