{"id":276518,"date":"2026-09-01T14:10:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T14:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/276518\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T14:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T14:10:05","slug":"ton-of-fun-jcc-of-the-lehigh-valley-teaches-tile-game-experiencing-boom-across-america-allentown-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/276518\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ton of fun’: JCC of the Lehigh Valley teaches tile game experiencing boom across America | Allentown Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – It’s a game that’s been around for centuries, but is now getting a new generation of players picking up tiles.<\/p>\n

69 News Reporter Sydney Kay was in Allentown with a breakdown of the game and its trend of growing popularity.<\/p>\n

JCC of the Lehigh Valley<\/a> is offering mahjong classes and tournaments. People at the center play American Mahjong, playing by the rules of the\u00a0National Mahjong League.<\/p>\n

Tracy Sussman, the center’s Marketing\/Membership Services Director, said mahjong is a tile game rooted in Asian culture. It has three “suits”: craks, dots, and bams.<\/p>\n

The whole idea is that players make a line of mahjong on the National Mahjong League card. She said there’s about 1,000 different options of lines or hands that you could win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mahjong started in China and made its way to America by way of Charles Babcock in New York, where immigrants began playing the game, she said.<\/p>\n

Sussman said the National Mahjong League was formed in the late 1930’s. The game has experienced a boom across America in the last seven or eight years.<\/p>\n

Sussman said mahjong is a ‘ton of fun.” She said she started teaching back in 2019. The center teaches learn to play classes.<\/p>\n

It runs a “Mahjong Madness” tournament a few times a year.<\/p>\n

69 News Reporter Sydney Kay asked\u00a0Sussman how long it takes to get the hang of the game, and she said six hours.<\/p>\n

For more information on classes, you can head to the JCC website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – It’s a game that’s been around for centuries, but is now getting a new generation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154,3705],"class_list":["post-276518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-sunrise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}