Impact Magazine is a magazine aimed to educate and inspire the Wattpad community to take a more active interest about the world around us. We cover events that affect the world we live in and raise awareness on issues that we should care about.
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The Mahjong Line, a Texas-based company founded by three white women have come under fire recently for their company's mission: to give the "venerable game" a "respectful refresh" because one of the founders stated that the game's traditional tiles "did not reflect the fun that was had when playing with her friends" and did not "come close to mirroring her style and personality".
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The comany has since taken down this photo of the three white female founders in the About section
Many people in the Chinese community was enraged and insulted by the insinuation that their culture was not "fun enough" for Americans, and that the Chinese culture needed refreshing before it could become palatable to the white community.
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The Mahjong Line has replaced traditional Chinese symbols with bubbles, lightning bolts and has tiles decorated with bags of flour and a Whoopie cushion.
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Rebranding this history-rich game, so entrenched in the Chinese culture and brought over to America by Chinese immigrants, is a slap in the face to the Chinese community. Blatantly disrespecting centuries of a Chinese culture, one which the American founders know nothing about (as evidenced by their mission to make American mahjong more fun because the old tiles were boring), just so that mahjong would be more palatable to a white audience is completely unacceptable.
White people have spent centuries ridiculing cultures different from theirs. Now, they're continuing to appropriate and profit of the Chinese culture, with an utter lack of respect or any sign of understanding of the culture they are appropriating.
The company has changed most of the language on their website and has also posted an apology following the backlash.
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However, it is noteworthy that the company has disabled comments on all their posts (including the apology post) and has disabled other accounts from being able to tag them on Instagram. This does not appear to be the actions of a company that is genuinely remourseful, it appears to be the actions of a company that is trying to contain a PR disaster.
Whether you are white or Asian, or belonging to any other culture, this attack and blatant disrespect of another culture is unacceptable and must be called out. Please help to make the voices of the Chinese community heard.
DM them on instagram (@/themahjongline), email them, tweet using the hashtag #themahjongline on twitter. Keep the conversation going and keep them accountable. Our goal is simple: (1) Stop The Mahjong Line from selling these tiles OR (2) Donate a percentage of profits to charities that specifically help the Chinese community to pay homage to this game which you are profitting from.
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