As little kids, it was pretty easy to pass our time during the Lunar New Year till we had to go to school again. Frequent visits to our relative's and family friend's house, collecting 'Ang Pow' and eating an assortment of cookies, crackers and food, made the time pass pretty quickly.
That was then. Now that I'm an adult, and a married one at that, plus I don't have many family on this side of the world to visit, what would I do to fill in the time? Play with the little kids. Right! Out comes the UNO cards, playing cards and maybe boardgames. Once the kids are suitably satisfied... what do the adults get up to?
I don't know what everyone else gets up to, but we do friendly mahjong games. Everyone thinks that it's just to pass the time, and hopefully gain some money out of it, but it requires loads of brain work, if you'd like to play it well. You'd have to figure out what everyone else is trying to do with their given tiles and hope that they won't win with the tile that you throw out or that you'll win before anyone else does.
The reason why the elderly play it, is to prevent the early onset of dementia. It is believed that the more you use your brain, the longer you can keep dementia at bay. And it's amazing watching the professionals play. They've been playing the game for so many years that some can even picture their tiles in the correct order in their head, while it's a mess on the table. Or that they can feel the grooves in the tile and know what they're holding in their hand without having to look at the tile.
I can't do either. I haven't been playing the game for long, but I do enjoy playing it and that's the only game that I ended up playing for the past couple of days in order to pass the time.
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