Green Tile Social Club
Green Tile Social Club is a New York City-based social club to teach and play mahjong. The mission of the club is to "connect with and give back to the Asian American community". The social club has also become a replacement or supplemental to traditional nightlife, which has attracted many Gen Zers due to their shifting priorities and social habits. The club plays the Hong Kong [mahjong scoring rules|Hong Kong style of mahjong].
Origins
Asian Americans Joanne Xu, Sarah Teng, Grace Liu, and Ernest Chan all graduated from University of Texas at Austin before separately moving to New York City. Chan learned how to play mahjong while watching his relatives in Hong Kong and Teng was taught by international students she met while earning her master's degree.After moving to the city, they all started playing mahjong at Teng's apartment together. Chan first posted on their Instagram story looking for New York friends to play mahjong with, and Liu and Teng joined first. They were looking for a fourth member, and Teng reached out to Xu. The initial meeting created a bond over commonalities in their desire to reconnect with their respective cultures and identity.
The gathering started out as a regular Sunday event, but then more friends asked to join them. Xu and others saw this as a growing demand among young Asian Americans for the game and for community. The club was founded in May 2022 and organized by Xu, Teng, Liu, and Chan as their side hustles to their full-time jobs. The first meeting was at the waterfront park Pier 35 in New York and played on two concrete tables. The first meet up event in May 2022 was at the Market Line at Essex Market.
Other mahjong clubs exist in New York City, but Green Tile Social Club is unique in that it was created as a community for younger players, which contrasts the typical association with older family relatives, but also serves as to bridge the gap between generations.
Events
The club hosts monthly mahjong game events, dinner parties, and corporate events. No membership is required to join and play.Events have a teaching hour, where they teach open-handed game play to facilitate learning the game. More experienced players can elect for the ticketed events without a teaching hour.
In the summer of 2024, the Green Tile Social Club hosted a series of events called "Mahjong in the Garden", where games were played in local community gardens and green space. The series returned in 2025 with three events located in The Standard, East Village.
Reception
As of 2024, Green Tile Social Club is one of the largest mahjong clubs in New York City and is a part of a new nightlife trend. Between 100 and 300 people attend the events, with a large proportion of attendees being under 30 years old. In February 2024 for their Lunar New Year party, there were 500 guests. From October 2023 to May 2024, the number of attendees doubled from 4,000 to 8,000. Their January 2025 event was hosted in a warehouse in Brooklyn, drawing in 700 people to play, along with the opportunity to get mahjong tile tattoos and omakase.Each game brings together four people to a table, where players may end up talking about childhood experiences growing up playing or watching the game being played. One attendee comments on enjoying the game because, "it really brings me back to a lot of memories of my childhood, especially with my grandfather, who is no longer with us. That's something really near and dear to my heart". Another attendee notes, "I always saw my parents playing this game with other people, but I never hopped in, though, because they all speak Chinese. I don’t speak Chinese at all so that was always a barrier Now I kind of understand why shouted all this stuff".
The Green Tile Social Club is also part of a trend of increased Asian-themed or Asian American-owned bars, such as Mood Ring, and pop-ups that are supported by the Asian American community and reclaiming their cultural roots.
Saturday Night Live's Bowen Yang has been noted to have attended.
Green Tile Social Club joins other mahjong clubs, like Los Angeles' Mahjong Mistress, in introducing mahjong to younger generations.