A Fargo instructor has brought more than 260 people to the table

On August 8, InForum published a feature by Tracy Briggs on the game's new fans in Fargo and Moorhead, and at the center of it is Chris Welsand, the founder of Mahj in the Midwest. The paper reports that Welsand has become a certified instructor and has introduced more than 260 people to the game, teaching beginner classes, private lessons and more alongside her assistant, Marcia Johnson.

What makes the number striking is how new she is to it. Welsand writes on her own site that she learned the game in 2025 and has played every day since, and that her lessons follow National Mah Jongg League rules.

How it started

According to InForum, Welsand first played at a neighbor's lake home near Brainerd, Minnesota, and went all in: within a week she owned tiles, a mat, a table and chairs for a room set aside for the game. The timing mattered. Her daughter had left for college, and Welsand, whose background includes nonprofit work and volunteering, had recently stepped back from a volunteer role and was looking for what came next.

She told the paper the game checked a lot of boxes for her, and summed it up in one line that could hang over the door of any club in the country. That sense of community, the article says, is what led her to launch Mahj in the Midwest.

Johnson's own start is the kind of story players love to tell. InForum reports that the two met in 2018, that Johnson, a massage therapist, meant only to watch her first game, and that the session she was pulled into ran about twelve hours.

“I wanted to challenge my brain, but I also wanted community.”Chris Welsand, to InForum

Inside a beginner class

Briggs and two Forum colleagues sat in on a beginner class at Froth Coffeehouse in Fargo on July 29, 2026. Welsand breaks the game into manageable pieces rather than covering every rule at once, the article says, while she and Johnson move between tables answering questions. The players worked from an official league card listing the year's winning hands, which is how the American game is played.

One student, Heather Otto, admitted she was a little intimidated at first by all the rules. Welsand told the paper she had been intimidated too. By the end of the first game, Nancy Frid, who had learned the game with Otto at a work team-building event, had won it, and the room erupted.

Welsand's reading of why people come is simple: she believes they want to get off their phones and really connect. InForum adds that several libraries, clubs and senior centers in Fargo and Moorhead host games every week.

Beyond the coffeehouse

The coffeehouse class is one room in a wider practice. On January 27, 2026, KVRR invited viewers to a new class called Mahj Curious, with Welsand saying the game suits all ages and works well for family and friend groups. Her events page at the time listed a Mahj Curious session on Wednesday, January 28 at Do Good Candles.

Her home page, as archived the same week, offered lessons in Fargo, North Dakota; in Brainerd, Duluth and the Twin Cities in Minnesota; and in Superior, Wisconsin, with lessons for groups, corporate teams, families and adult birthdays. To book, the site directs readers to its contact page. Order of the Tile is not affiliated with Mahj in the Midwest or any venue named here and does not sell lessons or sets.

Prim's view

Two hundred and sixty people in about a year is a lovely number, but the detail I keep returning to is the teacher who tells a nervous student that she was scared too. That is the whole art of teaching this game. The rules can be learned by anyone. The courage to sit down at a full table is what a good teacher hands you.

I also admire a woman who went from her first game at a lake house to a dedicated room within a week. Some of us call that impulsive. I call it knowing yourself. If you are anywhere near Fargo, Moorhead or Brainerd and have been circling the game, consider this your nudge.