Two classmates turn a temple lesson into a club that roams Montclair

Three years ago, two Montclair, New Jersey women signed up for the same beginner lesson at Temple Ner Tamid. They had never met, and neither knew much about the game. Today Maya Polton and Marlene Lewis run the Montclair Mahjong Social Club together, and according to a November 6 profile in Montclair Local, they have taught more than 130 people to play since their first public class in June.

The club has no hall of its own, and that is the point. Polton and Lewis carry the sets, the folding tables and the chairs to the town's cafes, boutiques and restaurants, and per the report they have now held classes and events in ten places around Montclair.

A curriculum, because they remember how hard it was

Both founders came to the game for their own reasons. Polton, a freelance writer and mother of three, told Montclair Local she wanted something that challenged her mind and had nothing to do with family duties. Lewis was looking ahead to an empty nest as her only son prepared for college, and she wanted a standing date on the calendar that would bring her together with other people. She once owned Sunshine Sam, a Montclair toy store built around hands on play.

What they remembered most was how hard their own start had been. Their lessons were informal, the report says, with experienced players explaining the rules and leaving beginners to sort the rest out. Lewis said she needed an actual curriculum, taught step by step. So last winter the two wrote one, with handouts and structured lessons, and tried it on friends before opening it to the public.

The club's own site describes the result as Mahjong 101, a two part series on the rules, the tiles and strategy, with the National Mah Jongg League card included. Alongside it they offer open play for all levels, guided play with a teacher at hand for players who want a refresher, and private events where they bring the sets and the instruction to a host's home.

Tables in the shops on the slow nights

Rather than rent a permanent room, the founders take the game to local businesses, often on weeknights when a dining room can be quiet. Montclair Local lists the MC Hotel, Tinga, Matarello Bakery and Cafe, Honey Brewed Cafe, Johari and Ria Frame and Gallery among their hosts. Lewis, who knows how hard small retail can be, described it to the paper as a reciprocal relationship: the club brings people in, and the shop plays gracious host.

The paper describes a recent Wednesday at Allegory, the restaurant inside the MC Hotel, with women four to a table building their walls between conversation and laughter. Players have come from Bloomfield, Verona, West Orange and West Caldwell as well as Montclair, and the founders say the ages run from the late twenties to the seventies. Men are welcome too.

To keep the games going after a class ends, the club runs the Clubhouse, a private group where past students find one another and arrange their own tables. Lewis told the paper that one of the most rewarding sights is a player asking to sit with people she did not know a few months earlier. Next up, per the report, is Mahj, Makeup and Mingle in December at Jones Road.

“Walking in alone is courageous and welcome.”Maya Polton, to Montclair Local

Prim's view

In my opinion, the finest thing in this story is the founders' memory of being lost. Plenty of good players forget how bewildering the first evening is. These two wrote a course because they did not forget, and every new student at their tables is the better for it.

I am equally taken with the choice to play in other people's shops. A bakery that fills on a Friday morning and a hotel dining room that hums on a Wednesday are good neighbors made better. And I would add one line of my own to Ms. Polton's welcome: a beginner who arrives alone is never alone for long at a well mannered table.