According to a Japanese legend, the evil of tobacco was first brought into the human world by a demon. I have nothing against the Japanese, but there’s never been such a thing as a demon in this world and there never will be, so that story is nothing but baseless nonsense. However, it is a fact that the game—or gambling tool—known as mahjong was first brought to Tsezhung by a cadre who had been fired from his government job. When he first arrived in Tsezhung he wasn’t even wearing a presentable pair of trousers, but he was carrying a brand-new mahjong set consisting of green and white plastic tiles. According to him, they were made of turquoise and ivory. The people of Tsezhung, naïve as someone who “knows no person but their mother and knows no earth but the hearth,” bought this completely. “This thing must be worth be a whole lot of yaks and sheep then?” said one of the wealthier men.
“How many yaks is a turquoise necklace worth? How many rams are ivory prayer beads worth?” the man retorted haughtily.
“Come on, tell me honestly. How many yaks and sheep do you want for it?” insisted the wealthy man.
“Alas, I don’t want to sell it.”
The man wasn’t a nomad or a soldier, and he certainly wasn’t a cadre anymore, yet the people of Tsezhung still called him “cadre” with a tone of reverence. The “cadre” gathered together a few unemployed young men like himself and showed them how to play, occasionally even handing each of them a cigarette, much to the delight of the nomads, who generally led uneventful lives. They spent day and night with him, and before long they had picked up the game of mahjong. Next, the “cadre” taught them how to bet, and the nomads were even more delighted. The “cadre” laid down a cash stake, then went about tirelessly relieving the nomads of their money, and he even had the pipes out of their pockets and the coats off their backs. The “cadre” could never forget how the real cadres had so heartlessly driven him out the door, butt naked, so he had no qualms whatsoever about leaving the nomads butt naked too. He even went one step further. “If there’s a real man here, put up your wife. Who’s got the guts to wager?” he goaded them.
Though no one dared to put up his wife, they started to bet their yaks and their sheep, leaving a few of them completely dispossessed of their livestock. Some begged him helplessly and some cajoled him desperately, but the “cadre” simply snorted with derision. “Hmph! You’re free not to bet, but you’re not free to shirk your debt. It’s written in the laws of the nation—don’t you know how many years in jail you get for not paying your debts?”
The nomads of Tsezhung didn’t know a thing about the law, but they knew it was something to be feared, so they had no choice but to wager their wives. The more sensible elders then became flustered and, hoping that there might be a ritual with the power to destroy this demon called mahjong, went to see Alak Drong. Upon seeing him, however, they ended up even more flustered, and left his place looking at one another, completely unsure what to do. This was because Alak Drong, his consort, and his entourage had been deeply immersed in their own game of mahjong, and though they had approached and knelt before him, remaining that way for some time, he hadn’t noticed them at all.
“If Rinpoché is playing too, how could we possibly have called it a demon?”
“We have committed great sins!”
“Unspeakable, unspeakable sins!”
When, in accordance with the instructions of the higher authorities, we went to investigate why several of Tsezhung’s households had become suddenly impoverished, we found the place covered in low, square-shaped earthen mounds that resembled incense altars. These, as it turned out, were the places the shepherds conducted their mahjong games, or gambling sessions. By then, however, the “cadre” who had first popularized mahjong in Tsezhung had already made off with all its wealth and gone back to the county seat, where he was caught by the police while gambling with the real cadres. It is said that not long after the first time the “cadre” made off to the county seat with all of Tsezhung’s wealth he came back again, plagued by hunger and cold and looking half dead, nothing on his body but a loincloth made from a tattered old towel. Yet, in his hands, he carried five “turquoise and ivory” mahjong sets, and instantly became rich once again.
When we confiscated all of the mahjong sets in Tsezhung an old man seized my leg, wailing. “Please, sirs! I traded a hundred rams for this; now I don’t own a thing of value but this mahjong set. Have pity on me, I beg you!” The sight of him was enough to make you feel sympathy, sadness, and anger all at once.