In recent years, there have been some movements towards organizing international mahjong competitions. One obstacle is the variety of different mahjong rules, in particular different scoring systems, in different countries and areas. For the purpose of international competitions, the development of a scoring system which can be used as the international standard is paramount.
However, we have to admit that, we have yet to see a scoring system that truly suffices as an acceptable international standard. The best known among the "international" systems is the one published by the Chinese Goverment in 1998; yet sadly, while that system is backed by 'official authority', its contents are not up to par as an international standard: not only is it overly complicated for wide propagation, but also it has many obvious problems subject to criticism (such as "self-draw inflation"). Its acceptance has been reluctant - and on a very limited scale, being conveniently ignored by the masses of mahjong players in China, Japan, and Hong Kong.
Zung Jung has been in development for over a decade, having started earlier than the Chinese Official system and others. As its name indicates, it aims to be a system of just the right amount of complexity, adopting enough patterns to provide the strategic challenge and excitement seeked by veteran players, without including too many patterns and making the system too difficult to learn. The rules are clear and simple. The systematic categorization of the patterns, also, enhances the ease of learning. Zung Jung is suitable not only for international competitions, but also for casual family entertainment; this is a key prerequisite for wide propagation and acceptance. Our aim is to promote mahjong as a game for everybody; only a system which is simple enough to be learned and played by everybody, can become widespread and attract a larger player base and audience, and be widely accepted as a true international standard. What is the meaning in trying to promote worldwide a "sport" that needlessly restricts itself to a select few to begin with? How can spectators retain interest in watching a competition they cannot understand?
Zung Jung aims to be an international standard fair for players from different countries. It accomplishes this not by picking up bits and pieces from here and there, but by referring back to the historical, original versions of mahjong. There is little doubt that the classical, complex "triplet-point" counting system is outdated, and that the fun and excitement of modern mahjong lies in the scoring patterns. Dropping the former in favor of the latter has been the general trend in the evolution of mahjong scoring systems everywhere. However, local developments in different countries have added to the game not only the patterns, but also various local 'peculiarities' which, if adopted by an international rules set, would render it unfair to foreign players. By studying the original forms of mahjong, one can distinguish between desirable developments and local peculiarities, and eliminate the latter to produce a fair rules set.
The Zung Jung Mahjong Scoring System will be adopted by the World Series of Mahjong competition, as the "World Series of Mahjong Scoring System".
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Alan KWAN Shiu Ho / tarot@netvigator.com / created 4 Jan 2007