The Mahjong and Chinese Board Game Society has your winning hand

Grab your tiles because this is a welcoming community that bridges language and social barriers through mahjong and board games.

Published on the 06 August 2026

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UNSW students participating in a mahjong tournament

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What exactly is the UNSW Mahjong and Chinese Board Game Society?

The rustling of coloured tiles. The furrowed brows. The dramatic slapping down of a winning - or losing - tile, followed by a cry of victory or despair. Even if you've never played mahjong, you can almost hear and feel what the experience is like through pure imagination - and from seeing mahjong content spread across social media.

The UNSW Mahjong and Chinese Board Game Society (MCBSoc) takes that energy and pairs it with a hangout vibe, where mahjong is a big part but not the be-all and end-all.

Founded circa 2023, MCBSoc is a relatively young society that's risen in popularity very quickly. Eric Lin, the society's Vice-President and an Engineering/Computer Science student, says it all began as two separate entities.

"The first president started it as a club with his friends, originally meaning it to be a Chinese Board Game Society," he recalls. "But he realised a friend of his was also trying to get a mahjong society off the ground at the same time. Since they were already good mates, they just combined the two into one society, which is why it’s called the Mahjong and Chinese Board Game Society."

According to Daniel Wei, the society's President and an Economics student, combining those early clubs was a great idea, but there were some teething issues in appealing to both international and domestic students.

"If you think about similar societies — like chess or poker — they’re board games, but look at who they’re trying to target: mostly domestic students," he explains. "If you think, 'oh, it’s a traditional Chinese board game, so you’ve got to target Chinese people,' then ideally the majority of the society would be international students, because they really know the game.

"But it’s actually the domestic students who tend to have a better understanding of the university, Arc, sponsorships, marketing and all the other things it takes to run a society. So there’s a bit of a split."

Over time, this split began to close organically as international and domestic members began to bond by simply playing mahjong. As a result, MCBSoc has built up a tight-knight community of around 100 members, with about 30 to 40 people who turn up regularly to events.

"We needed the people who come to our events to blend it themselves," says Daniel. "At the end of the day it’s a board game — everyone knows how to play. If you can sit down with friends, or even if you haven’t got friends yet, you can make them at our events."

"You sit down, you play week after week, build that understanding and the blending happens naturally. If you tried to go around introducing every international student to every domestic student, that would be exhausting and just wouldn’t work!

"It’s really good to see so many people from so many different backgrounds just come to our events and play."

Daniel Wei
UNSW MCBSoc President

Chinese board games (or lack thereof) and weekly happenings

You may have noticed a distinct lack of mentions regarding Chinese board games so far. That's simply because the people love mahjong far more than any other board game, though not for a lack of trying.

"We did try other Chinese board games early on — Chinese chess, Chinese checkers — but there wasn’t a lot of demand for those," laughs Daniel. "In fact, the name’s a bit misleading, because nine times out of ten we just play mahjong."

"At the night markets, we make food or drinks and sell it. We try to do something in character for the society while also making a bit of money to help drive our other events.

"It’s a very engaging experience. You learn how well you handle pressure and how to work with people, because when the stress is really on you have to trust that someone will grab what you need and they have to trust you the same way."

Eric Lin
UNSW MCBSoc Vice-President

Interestingly, what has made an impact, especially among international students, are Chinese versions of western board games, such as Avalon, Mafia and Werewolf.

"[Due to] that lack of demand, we don’t hold the other board games as often as our mahjong sessions," explains Daniel. "We’ve tried them once or twice and it’s been a bit half-hearted, but we’re not giving up on them. They’re just not a top priority right now."

As promised by society's name - well, half of it at least - mahjong is the main game of choice for MCBSoc. For those wanting to get involved, there's a mahjong game held every week of term.

"We get a room, set up tables and just run mahjong games. Anyone can come in, and if there’s a spare spot or you’ve brought some friends, you just play," says Daniel. "It runs for about three hours on Friday afternoons. We provide snacks, drinks, a bit of music and try to make it a place where everyone can come at the end of the week and just chill."

It's not all mahjong-centric events though. Daniel says there are occasional social outings and night market events aimed at spreading the word about MCBSoc while chilling with people outside of the mahjong table: "We’ve done the odd pub crawl and we do a fair few night markets, mainly to broaden our reach."

"There could be someone out there who’d really enjoy mahjong but just isn’t in the right social media circle or position to hear about us, so we go to night markets, sell food [and] sell the society. In terms of non-weekly events, we’ve also done tournaments."

Around 30 to 40 people turn up to each MCBSoc event, which highlights the community's passion.

The appeal and community-building power of mahjong

For newcomers and first-year uni students, it can be intimidating to make new friends with whom you share similar interests. Daniel says that societies are a great way to meet like-minded people and build up those friendships, which came as a surprise to him.

"I didn’t realise there was this social side to uni. You hear a lot of conflicting things before you get here and it’s not until you’re actually here that you understand it," he recalls. "I came here, started attending these events and thought, 'you don’t get this at high school.' For first-years especially, I think they really enjoy the social side, meeting new people while playing a game we all love."

"It’s good just to have fun. It’s not like chess, where you have to be a prodigy. There’s an element of luck, but it’s not as purely lucky as poker either. It’s a good middle ground: you need a bit of skill, but not too much.

"You can have a lot of skill, but if your luck isn’t there, it doesn’t really matter. You can [also] have a lot of luck without the skill to play it."

Daniel Wei
UNSW MCBSoc President

At the time of this chat, Daniel estimates that international students make up "a quarter to a third" of MCBSoc's membership, but he's noticing an increase of people with diverse backgrounds attending events.

"Culturally, the vast majority would still have Chinese heritage, mostly because of the game’s origins," he says. "But one thing I’m glad to see is that, compared to [2025], we’ve been getting more people from different ethnic backgrounds coming along and enjoying mahjong. That’s really nice to see."

The society's increasingly diverse member base means there's a wide range of reasons why mahjong appeals to any particular person. For international students, especially those with a Chinese background, Daniel says it's likely a "cultural thing" that's been ingrained from a young age: "If you’re walking to school as a kid and you see people’s grandparents playing outside the tea shops, you think, 'oh, what’s that?'

"For Chinese New Year [and] big family gatherings, everyone plays mahjong. So [international students] come to our events and find something familiar."

For domestic students, the appeal of mahjong is more varied. Some Chinese members have the cultural factor due to older relatives playing it. Others learn to play simply because it's a fun game.

"We’re also helped a lot by social media, it’s been popping off online. There are trends around it, it’s very much a 'Chinese aesthetic' moment, and that comes with a lot of interest," says Daniel. "One of our subcommittee members learned mahjong at one of our events and has been spamming it to all her friends, so there’s a word-of-mouth element. It’s the combination of all these different factors that makes it so appealing."

This appeal makes mahjong a very easy hobby to take up and MCBSoc a great place for anyone to thrive. Whether you're a Business, Economics, IT, Commerce, Engineering or Science student, Daniel says that anyone can come to an MCBSoc event, be good at mahjong and meet people they otherwise wouldn't come across during their usual uni day-to-day. As long as you have a spare few hours, this society is open to everyone.

Skill, luck and the future of the society

With over 100 members, the mahjong skill level is quite wide-ranging. As one might expect, this leads to some friendly competition within the community. For more seasoned players, you can get involved in some intense bouts. For beginners or those who just want to chill, there are plenty of people who are there to have fun.

"People of all skill levels come through, some who’ve never played before — we’ll assign someone to teach them, which is lovely," says Daniel, "But then we also get really battle-hardened veterans from, say, a southern Chinese province. Mostly people come here to meet people and have fun, but it does get pretty competitive, especially when there are big hands at stake.

"Sometimes people get really lucky, sometimes really unlucky. [Weekly mahjong sessions] run for three hours, and most people will only move tables once or twice, so you end up sitting with the same people for a long time — you get to know them over the course of the evening."

MCBSoc is thriving at the moment, but both Daniel and Eric aren't resting their laurels. They have some big plans to keep the society growing, but at a sustainable pace.

"We’re always chasing better, bigger, more ambitious events, but I have to keep in mind we can only run events within our actual ability, so I don’t think we’ll explosively grow — more that we’ll grow progressively," says Daniel. "Maybe 20 more people at our weekly events, then another 20 then maybe 10 more."

For Eric, he hopes to make things more accessible to beginners while also expanding the society's reach: "I know a lot of people would enjoy the game, but they just don’t know it exists or find it intimidating because mahjong has a lot of rules and isn’t especially beginner-friendly to start with. If we can push more events and make things more beginner-friendly, more inviting and welcoming, I think that would be one of the biggest things we could do."

"We do hope to keep growing that. We can’t say 'let’s only invite domestic students,' because we’d be ignoring international students, and vice versa — the domestic students are lovely too! At the end of the day, we just hope as many people as possible can come and learn."

Daniel Wei
UNSW MCBSoc President