information from One Bams

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Tom says in his FAQ that the One Bams can give information on the
region of China a set came from.

What can be said about this?

 

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From: Julian Bradfield <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk>

>Tom says in his FAQ that the One Bams can give information on the
>region of China a set came from.
>
>What can be said about this?

I suppose one could be more specific than I was. (^_^) The long-necked crane
with bent neck (with head at bottom) is a particular look of 1B that was
made in Shanghai in the early 1920s. I suspect that the early 1920s peacock
1B was also made in Shanghai. The MJM book shows some tiles with rooster 1Bs
and says those were made in Suzhou.

I didn't say that I know myself what region various 1B types came from -
just that those can be useful in evaluating a set.

Cheers,
Tom

 

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"Tom Sloper" <tomster@sloperamaNOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:<%KGGc.34733$%_6.28796@attbi_s01>...
> From: Julian Bradfield <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk>
>
> >Tom says in his FAQ that the One Bams can give information on the
> >region of China a set came from.
> >
> >What can be said about this?
>
> I suppose one could be more specific than I was. (^_^) The long-necked crane
> with bent neck (with head at bottom) is a particular look of 1B that was
> made in Shanghai in the early 1920s.

Hi Tom. I was also interested in this question and was hoping yuou
would reply.

How do you know the 'bent-necked' crane came from Shanghai? I seem to
recall someone else mentioning that also.

> I suspect that the early 1920s peacock 1B was also made in Shanghai.

Same question as above.

> The MJM book shows some tiles with rooster 1Bs and says those were made in Suzhou.

Yes. I remember those.

Cheers
Michael

 

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Michael Stanwick wrote:

>How do you know the 'bent-necked' crane came from Shanghai? I seem to
>recall someone else mentioning that also.

I read that in the MJM book.

>> I suspect that the early 1920s peacock 1B was also made in Shanghai.
>
>Same question as above.

The crane and the peacock are the two most common 1B designs in Babcock
(Mah-Jongg Sales Co.) sets. Shanghai was the shipping hub in Babcock's
operation (sorry, I don't have a source on that tidbit at the moment).

Cheers! - Tom

 

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"Tom Sloper" <tomster@sloperamaNOSPAM.com> writes:

> I read [about 1bams] in the MJM book.
....
> The crane and the peacock are the two most common 1B designs in Babcock
> (Mah-Jongg Sales Co.) sets. Shanghai was the shipping hub in Babcock's
> operation (sorry, I don't have a source on that tidbit at the moment).

Also MJM book. Having just acquired a copy of the MJM book, I see it
has lots of bits about what sort of tiles come from which place.
I'll try to compile a list of these some time.

Incidentally, it is clear that in some captions the Japanese entry has
more information than the English one - is there anybody on the group
who has the book and reads Japanese?

 

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Julian Bradfield <jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message news:<e6coemgng3s.fsf@palau.inf.ed.ac.uk>...
> "Tom Sloper" <tomster@sloperamaNOSPAM.com> writes:
>
> > I read [about 1bams] in the MJM book.
> ...
> > The crane and the peacock are the two most common 1B designs in Babcock
> > (Mah-Jongg Sales Co.) sets. Shanghai was the shipping hub in Babcock's
> > operation (sorry, I don't have a source on that tidbit at the moment).
>
> Also MJM book. Having just acquired a copy of the MJM book, I see it
> has lots of bits about what sort of tiles come from which place.
> I'll try to compile a list of these some time.

Hello Julian. There are some errors in the book. Also, there are no
explanations as to how the authors came to assign the time and place
of where the sets in question originated.

Still, a marvellous and beautiful book full of, in most cases, useful
information.
>
> Incidentally, it is clear that in some captions the Japanese entry has
> more information than the English one - is there anybody on the group
> who has the book and reads Japanese?

Yes, a very good question which i would also like an answer.

Cheers
Michael Stanwick

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.mahjong (More info?)

> > is there anybody on the group
> > who has the book and reads Japanese?

I read hiragana and katakana - I cannot read kanji (so I can read everything
except the verbs and names of people/places and sometimes things). To read
kanji I have to do a laborious lookup in my various books, and I still wind
up with only a close approximation.

Two names: Alan Kwan and Ryan Morris.
I don't know if Alan has the book or still reads the newsgroup's postings.
And Ryan is used to getting paid to do translation work! (^_^) I imagine he
has a copy of the book since he does writing for Takeshobo, owned by the
owner of the museum.

Third name: Thierry Depaulis - at least, he seems to be able to get Chinese
readings...

However, a big job like translating all the captions would not be something
that someone who's capable of doing it should be expected to do for us
simply because we wish he would....

Tom

 

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"Tom Sloper" <tomster@sloperamaNOSPAM.com> writes:

> However, a big job like translating all the captions would not be something
> that someone who's capable of doing it should be expected to do for us
> simply because we wish he would....

Indeed. There would also be a small issue of copyright!
However, it is theoretically possible that there is someone interested
in Mah-Jong, and fluent in Japanese and English, who would find it
interesting to go through and note any major differences. Having noted
them, it would be little extra work to put them on the Web.

I might see if I can get some of my Japanese colleagues to look at the
more obvious cases of additional information in Japanese, but I cannot
abuse them! (Unfortunately, none of them is *my* Ph.D. student 🙂

 

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"Tom Sloper" <tomster@sloperamaNOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:<ppeKc.115155$XM6.10788@attbi_s53>...

> Third name: Thierry Depaulis - at least, he seems to be able to get Chinese readings...

I can't read hiragana and katakana!
I started deciphering these scripts some months ago since Takashi
Ebashi (one of the authors of the MJM Big Book) thought I could do
it...

However, I know no Japanese.

I am slightly better at reading some Chinese.

There indeed are many errors in romanising Chinese names (that are
mostly "adapted" from their Japanese transcriptions!), and the English
is sometimes a bit awkward.

Thierry