Nightmares are horrific and terrifying, but at least you always wake up. What if the only way to escape Death was by experiencing nightmare after nightmare? Writes Taryn Ozorio

Kyle is fourteen and loves to run. He runs miles and miles every morning. Is he running away from his parents’ divorce? What happened to his dad? One day, on a school trip into town, something terrible happens.

The train he and his classmates are riding suddenly and catastrophically derails and is hanging, precariously off the tracks.

His classmates are injured and bleeding, mostly unconscious. Kyle, fading in and out of consciousness himself, seems to be slipping into their dreams. Not only their dreams but their worst nightmares.

Each nightmare becomes more and more real, and more and more horrifying. Kyle forces himself to wake and try to go for help. But then he finds Rachel, another survivor who insists that go back into his friends’ dreams… or Kyle will never make it off the train alive.

This book is a real thriller. The nightmares Kyle experiences range from extreme danger, to murder to post-apocalyptic survival. Each nightmare is like a short story, around a chapter or so. This structure makes the book a real page-turner and gives it an ever accelerating pace. The nightmares are so gripping, because, although disturbing, they all seem realistic, plausible even. Just like the road to hell is paved with good intentions, each nightmare starts off small and innocent and avalanches into something much more sinister. Many of the stories are allegories of parables and myths, like a modern, siren-like Rapunzel and a story on making deals with the Devil. Some of the tales with frighten the pants off you, but mostly they aren’t too scary.

Blackman is a great writer. She excels at showing, not telling her readers what is going on. Her descriptions of objects and scenes draw you in. She uses plain and accessible English, making the book easy to read – the plot and the characters make it hard to put down. I recommend not reading this at night!

From the back cover

It begins with a ride on a train.

But where it ends is on a precipice of horror – dangling on the border between life and death.

It’s a moment when Kyle discovers he’s not the only one in his class who knows about fear.

Not the only one who has nightmares.

And now, as Death stalks the carriages, it’s a moment when nightmares become real.

Nightmares of wars, and a world devastated by chemical weapons. Of a body being slowly stolen, bit by bit. Of monstrous actions and monstrous creatures from old myths. Of jealousy, obsession and a stalker outside your window. Nightmares of everything imaginable.

What will it take for Kyle to finally face his greatest fear?

Glossary
derail (v) : to come off the railway tracks
precariously (adj) : in a way that is likely to fall
post-apocalyptic (adj) : a very serious event resulting in great destruction and change
page-turner (n) : a book that is so exciting that you have to read it quickly
pace (n) : speed at which the story unfolds
the road to hell is paved with good intentions (idiom) : well intended acts can have disastrous results, can also be used in reference to people who procrastinate
siren (n) : mythical creature whose beautiful singing encouraged sailors to sail into dangerous waters where they died; a dangerous, beautiful woman.
frighten the pants off sb (phr) : scare someone completely
accessible (adj) : easy to understand

Author: Malorie Blackman
Title: The Stuff of Nightmares
Publisher: Corgi Children’s
Published: July 2008
Genre: Thriller
Age: 12 and up. Not suitable for younger readers.>

Before you can start playing any dog sports, your dog will need to have mastered most of the common obedience commands such as stay, sit, down, come, touch etc. Once you have got that down pat, you should try some classes to see what sports you like and learn how to teach your dog to compete safely.

Agility
A test of your dog’s strength, coordination and speed. Agility usually includes jumps, tunnels, poles for your dog to weave through, tyre jumps, seesaw and an “A” frame. Each dog is pitted against the other. They must race through the course, making sure they mount and dismount properly.

Flyball
This sport is a test of your dog’s speed. Your dog must race another dog, over 6 jumps, collect and ball and run back – tagging your team mate. It is a relay race. The quickest team wins. This is a great sport for dogs who love to run and chase balls.

Showing
Whose dog is the best in breed? Judges decide which dogs are the best representative of their “breed standard”, i.e. What has been established by Kennel Clubs for how a German Shepherd should look. They decide by examining the dogs’ body stature, weight, balance, muscle, etc.

Obedience
How obedient is your dog? Exercises include heeling, stay, come on command, retrieval (fetch) and scentwork (where dogs have to find various articles, with their noses, along a track). In Obedience competitions, dogs have to be exact, fast and extremely obedient.

Mushing
Quite a new sport, some Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute owners meet up to go cross-country sledding using traditional harnesses. The dogs love to race and pull their owners along. Usually there are between two and four dogs per sled.

Hunting
Probably the oldest of all sports. Hunters use dogs to help them flush out birds and collect their carcasses after they have been shot.

Heelwork to music
Also known as freestyle. Dogs and their owners appear to dance to music in choreographed routines, often with costumes.

Tracking
An event that encourages dogs to make use of their strongest facility, the ability to follow a scent trail. Dogs compete in open parks to try and find lost people, things etc.

Classes in Hong Kong
Obedience/Agility/ Dog Showing: HK Kennel Club , ph. 2523 3944, info@hkkennelclub.com.hk, www.hkkennelclub.com.hk
Agility: Hong Kong K-9 Club, ph. 2488 6736 www.petfield.com.hk
Obedience/ Agility/ Flyball/ Swimming: Pet Oasis, ph. 2456 1966, info@pet-oasis.com, www.pet-oasis.com

Glossary
down pat (phr) learned perfectly
pitted against the other (phr) versus
relay (n) a race between teams; each member runs or swims part of the distance.
tag (v) to touch another player, signifying it is their turn to race

Let’s play ball!

Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon creates an incredible fantasy world where an unlikely hero has to save the world … with baseball writes Taryn Ozorio.

Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer prize in 2001 for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a comic book-cum-detective story. This time he sets his literary sights on creating an American fairytale, it’s like a modern American version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe featuring the greatest of all American sports, baseball.

Summerland is a place where the sun always shines and it never rains, not in the entire history of Clam Island. It’s where everybody plays baseball. The people of Clam Island are obsessed with baseball, as is Ethan’s dad. But Ethan is hopeless at baseball. He is so bad, he often just stands at the plate and lets the balls go by, much to the despair of his teammates.

But one day it rains in Summerland and everything changes. Ethan is recruited by a bunch of baseball-mad ferishers (American fairies) who want him to save the four worlds … with a baseball team.

Right next door to Summerland on Clam Island, USA there is another Summerland, a place where fairies, giants, sasquatches and all sorts of mythical creatures exist in perpetual summer.

Accompanied by his friends Jennifer T, an excellent ball player and pitcher, and Thor, who thinks he is a robot stuck in a kid’s body, Ethan sets off on a grand adventure, spurred on by the kidnap of his dad. Ethan’s dad has been tricked by Coyote, the biggest trickster of them all, who wants to end all the worlds by suffocating the Tree of Life.

Ethan flies off in his dad’s zeppelin-car to challenge giants, werefoxes, coyotes and many more strange creatures to save his dad and stop Coyote from ending the worlds.

This book is easy to ready and immense fun. Chabon has a created a complete fantasy world that you can’t wait to find out more about. You get the chance, too as at over 500 pages, Ethan has many adventures, learns a lot about baseball, American myths and meets a wide variety of mythical creatures (like the ones who steal your socks).

This is a coming of age story . Ethan’s journey from self-doubt to confidence is inspiring. He becomes not half-bad at baseball, trusts himself and his decisions and discovers who he really is.

You won’t be able to put down this magical and quirky tale.

Glossary
zeppelin (n) : an airship that keeps afloat with a giant balloon of air
sets his sights (phr) : to decide to achieve something
spur sb on (phr) : to encourage somebody
coming of age (phr) : type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence.
not be half bad (phr) informal : if something is not half bad, it is good, often better than you thought it would be

Summerland
by Michael Chabon
Published by Miramax Books, 2002
Genre: Fairytale

A killer read set on another planet with animals that talk, where you can hear the “Noise” of other people’s thoughts.

“Challenging but not bleak” that’s what the judges of the Guardian Children’s Book of the Year called this astounding book that won the award. Although aimed at young adults (12-18 year olds) anyone will enjoy this book, it’s also a really good choice for boys. I heartily recommend it – it’ll make you laugh out loud.

The book has one of the best openings ever:

The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.

“Need a poo, Todd.”

“Shut it, Manchee.”

“Poo. Poo, Todd.”

Isn’t that great? Patrick Ness manages to capture the innocence and eagerness of dogs in a few simple lines. Manchee goes on with classic lines like:

“Squirrel, Todd! Squirrel!”

Todd is the only boy in a village of men. He lives in a world where you can hear everything that everyone thinks. And all the animals can speak too. The settlers came to start a new, God-fearing life far away from the overcrowded Earth. After a mysterious disease, all the women died and the men survived. But they are all angry … and hiding something.

Todd is fast approaching the day when he becomes a man, it’s significant because he is the last one in his village to do so. What will the men tell him? What are they holding back? What will send Todd and his trusty dog Manchee on the run? But how can they run when their pursuers can hear their thoughts?

Patrick Ness paints a believable frontier world that is harsh and religious. His depiction of “Noise,” being able to hear everyone’s thoughts, is really fun. Words scrawl over the book and overlap each other, giving you a feel for what Todd and the others’ experience.

The book is a combination of adventure and science fiction. There are fallen spaceships, horse chases and a long desperate run for safety. Todd’s life gets turned upside down and its easy to identify with him and his plight. Todd faces difficult decisions and constantly fights with a knife that urges him to do violence.

The conversational writing style and non-stop action make this a real page turner. You’ll be riveted from start to finish.

Ness told the Guardian:

“This story felt like something that’s got to be really gone for, really shouted out from the rafters, and teenage fiction is where you can do that and still not be shoved into genre. In its most basic form it’s about information overload, the sense that the world is so very, very loud. Then I took the next logical step of what if you couldn’t get away.”

The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first in a trilogy called Chaos Walking. The second book will be published next May and Ness is working on the third.
The Knife of Never Letting Go
by Patrick Ness
Walker Books, Published 5 May 2008

Have you seen videos of dog’s dancing with their owners? How do they do it? Taryn Ozorio finds out.

Doggy dancing, freestyle or heelwork to music is very popular in the West. Crufts, the UK’s famous dog show, holds an international competition in it each year. The routines are quite amazing and fun.

Training your dog to dance, is all about shaping its behaviour, linking a set of behaviours and adding music.

Shaping is training in small steps. For example, we might want our dogs to go through a hoop. We don’t expect our dogs to go through the hoop on the first go. We need to teach them how to do it. So we start off slow, by clicking and rewarding them for small behaviours (looking at the hoop, putting the head through the hoop, moving towards the hoop, putting one paw in, etc) and then moving up towards the final behaviour (jumping through the hoop). Making sense now?

We’ve already taught our dogs one of the main tricks in doggy dancing – the spin.

Other common tricks in doggy dancing are weave and circle me. Once you have taught your dogs all these behaviours, you just need a bit of music to start doggy dancing routines.

You’ll need a target stick, anything long and straight with a different colour at the end. Teach your dog to touch the end of the stick, by clicking and rewarding when it goes near it. Then when it touches it, give it a jackpot – a lot of treats. Now only click and treat when it touches the stick.

Spin
1. Use a target stick. Move the stick in a circle and reward each time your dog touches the stick. Start out with lots of touches per circle (repeat 20 times) and gradual reduce the number of touches until they are going faster and faster!
2. When they are doing it perfectly you can now say “Spin” before your wave the stick in a circle. Soon you will be able to do the motion just with your hands.

Weave
Teaching your dog to move through your legs is a great dancing trick. All you need is your target stick. All you
1. Open your legs wide and hold the target stick on the other side of your legs. Treat and click, when you dogs touches the stick, or shape it to go to the stick.
2. Once you’ve got that down pat, take a step and get your dog to weave as you walk.

Circle me
Teaching your dog to circle around you is easy! Get your target stick. Move the target stick around your body and click and treat each time. Slowly, increase the distance and reward speed.

Now you can do a routine, get your dog to spin, weave and circle around you! Put some music on and you’ve become a doggy dancer!

Doggy Dancing videos
Winners of the Crufts 2008, Heelwork to Music, Kath Hardman and September Spice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_jg4bmbW6Y
Kath Hardman explaining doggy dancing http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/videonation/2005/dancing_dogs.shtml
Sini Eriksson and Sonic, 2nd place in the International Freestyle to Music, Crufts 2008

This is an amazing routine that is inspired by and reenacts the film ET.

Glossary
shaping (v) to teach (a desired behavior) to a human or other animal by successively rewarding the actions that more and more closely approximate that behavior.
making sense now (phr) understand now
weave (v) to direct or move along in a winding or zigzag course; move from side to side, esp. to avoid obstructions

The two most important commands are probably stay and come. With these simple words you can get your dogs to stop and return to you. It might prevent them from getting run over! Taryn Ozorio explains how to train your dog.

You might not think that stay is an important command to teach your dog. But it can save your dog’s life! What if your dog was going to cross the road and a car was coming? You could call out “Stay!” and your dog would stop. You can also use it around the house when you want your dog to be calm and keep away from guests.

You must remember to teach your dog very slowly. Only go further away from your dog when they have mastered short distances. Also, you will need to teach your dog in different places and around distractions. When you introduce these new elements, start off easily.

You can teach your dog to stay in a range of positions: sitting, lying down and standing up. Try to teach your dog to stay in all of these positions.

1. Ask your dog to sit, stand up or lie down. Click and treat.
2. Put your hand in front of your dog’s nose, like a big stop sign. Move away, to about arm distance, and quickly return. If your dog hasn’t moved, click and treat. Easy! Now do this 20 times in a few different locations. (If your dog moves, put some food in your hand for it to smell. When you come back, click, open your hand and give it the treats.)
3. Now we are going to move a little further away. Always click and treat when your dog doesn’t move. If it moves just ignore it and start again. Take two steps this time and remove your hand. Easy, right? Now you just have to keep varying the distance, length of time and add in some distractions. Soon your dog will be a “Stay” champion! Remember, if you dog breaks, don’t scold, just start again.

Come
The come command, also called a recall in dog training, tells your dog to come over to you. You can use this when your dog is off the lead, to bring it back to you. You can also use in many situations at home. Again like the stay, the key to teaching the come is to do it slowly and in small increments. Never ever, ever punish your dog after it comes

1. Call your dog (“Rover, Come!”) and run/walk backwards. When they start coming towards you click. When they get to you, grab their collar and give them their treat.
2. Do this 10 times in 10 sessions times and your dog will have the basic come! Make it exciting, use an excited, high pitched voice and always give your dog a special kind of treat! Call your dog for its dinner and for a walk, this will be very exciting for your dog and a great reinforcement of the behaviour.
3. Like stay, you will need to increase your distance slowly. Also add in distractions and different environments, when you add a distraction or new environment, always do a closer come to make it easier for your dog. When you are outside, always have your dog on a lead!
4. There are some fun games that you play with your dog to train it to come. Get a partner or some friends. Do the exercise above, and after your dog has gone to one person and got its reward, get the next person to call it. Your dog will love this fun game! And it will learn to come to whoever calls it. Only do it for a few minutes though or your dog will get bored and tired. You can also play hide and seek with your dog.

Help! My dog doesn’t know its name!
You have to teach your dog its name, just like anything else. Start off slow. Say your dog’s name once (it’s important not to say “Rover… rover… rover, rover”, otherwise your dog will just ignore you, or get desensitised). When he looks up, click and treat. Only reward when your dog looks towards you when you say its name. Only call it when it is not paying you any attention! After you have practiced this a few times, you dog will learn its name!

Glossary
increment (n) small addition, increase or step up.
mastered (v) make oneself a master of.
distraction (n) that which divides the attention.
desensitise (v) to make indifferent, lessen the sensitivity of.

Is your dog good or naughty? Does he do want you want him to? Taryn Ozorio shares some tips on how to make your dog into an angel.

What do we mean when we say good or naughty when we are discussing dogs? Good, bad and naughty are value judgments. They don’t apply to a dog. What we actually mean is we want our dog to behave in a way that is socially acceptable and to obey us.

But have you ever taught your dog how to behave? What do you consider to be acceptable behaviour?

Toilet training
Yes, we have to teach our dogs how, where and when to go to the toilet. We teach human babies the same thing so why should it be any different with dogs? You need to take it slowly, recognise that they will make mistakes and be patient. The three critical success factors are routine, rewarding your dog when they go to the toilet in the right place and ignoring them when they make a mistake! Why? If you make a big fuss and get angry your dog will a) not like you very much and b) start to hide it!

Toilet training for a new puppy
If you’ve just got a new puppy, it is the easiest habit to teach. You need to get a crate or something similar. If your puppy has not come from a pet store you can rest assured that your puppy won’t wee in its bed. So, every time you take it out of its crate, take it to a toilet place and click/whistle and treat when it goes. Do this after meals, playing and basically every three to four hours.

Toilet training for older dogs
If you’ve had your dog for a while and it still has problems don’t worry. Always take your dog for a walk or to its toilet place at least four times a day, always first thing in the morning and always before you go to bed. If you can, always do it at the same time, dogs love routine. Every time it does the right thing, click/whistle and treat.

Jumping up
It’s really annoying and it can also be dangerous when you dog jumps on people. You need to teach your dog that it won’t get attention when it jumps up. Every time your dog jumps up, turn around. Never pat it. When it has all four legs on the floor again, click/whistle and treat. When it is doing this really well, you need volunteers! Do the same thing with as many different people as you can.

Being calm
Teach your dog to be quiet by rewarding him when he is being calm around the house and when he is lying on his bed. Click/whistle and treat all the behaviours that you want him to display and ignore the ones your don’t like. Don’t want him to beg while you’re eating? Easy, put him in another room or reward him when you have finished and when he is being calm.

Chewing or stealing your shoes
Take the item away from your dog and ignore it. He probably wants to play and knows you make a fuss when he steals something. Make sure your dog has bones to chew and toys to play with. Play with his toys with him. Don’t leave your shoes where he can get them!

Glossary
value judgment (n) : a subjective view based on what you believe to be morally acceptable, or unacceptable
socially (adj) : relating to society
critical success factors (phr) : important things that will decide whether the activity is success or not
crate (n) : open metal box, doghouse
rest assured (phr) : used to tell someone not to worry and that you are in control of the situation
make a fuss (phr) : give someone a lot of attention, possibly too much

How does your dog learn? What is the best way to get your dog to do want you want? Taryn Ozorio finds some clues in modern psychology.

There are many ways to get a dog to do something. You can force him to do it, you can lure him into doing it or you can teach him to do it.

Learning Theory
The most humane and probably powerful way to train a dog is through operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. They are theories of behaviour where we put the dog in control of its behaviour and reward it for doing the right thing so that the behaviour will happen again.

We need to tell the dog when it is doing the right thing, to mark the right behaviour. Many people say “Good dog!” but if you want to be a superstar at dog training, the most effective tool is a dog whistle or clicker.

So first things first, let’s teach our dog that the whistle or clicker means “Yes, that is what I want you to do.” This is really easy and your dog will love it!

Get your whistle/clicker and some food. Whistle/click and reward. Do that 20 times in one session. Do at least 5 sessions. We now have a Pavlovian reaction, your dog will associate the clicker with getting food. Yum!

Let’s look at the ubiquitous “sit”. How did you teach your dog to sit? Here are three different methods:

1. Push his bottom until his legs collapse and say “Sit”.

2. Get a bit of food and try and encourage him to sit. Take the food from over his nose towards his back. When he sits, click and give him a treat.

3. Wait until he offers you a sit, naturally. Click and give him lots of treats. When he does it again, feed him again. You’ll find that your dog will keep sitting for you!

The second and third methods are probably the kindest way to teach a dog to sit. They all work, but in second and third methods your dog actually decides to sit because he can get some food. Plus he discovers for himself what you want him to do!

It can take dogs up to 100 repetitions of a certain behaviour before they will learn or remember it. So another golden rule of dog training is Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!

Little by little
The other thing to remember is that your dog won’t be able to do 500 metre come on command or turn on a light the first time you try it. We need to break down the activity into small chunks. Do you recall the spin from last time? We broke the trick into lots of small parts to make it easier for your dog to learn.

There are lots of other tips and techniques to help dogs learn, like giving your dog a food jackpot, randomising when you give him food and always finishing on success. Don’t wait until he gets bored, stop first!

You can take clicker training classes at the SPCA. Visit www.spca.org.hk for more information.
Trick: Wave
Get your stick from last time.
1. Start off by getting your dog to touch the end of the stick with its nose, do this five or so times.
2. Now, move the stick lower, towards their paws. When your dog’s paw comes up give them a treat jackpot (a big handful of treats).
3. When your dog is consistently touching the stick with its paw, raise the stick in front of you dog, just out of their reach. Reward when it doesn’t touch the stick and looks like it is waving!
4. When your dog is doing this perfectly you can now say “Wave” before you wave the stick. Soon you can drop the stick and just do the motion with your hands. Now your dog can say “Hi” and “Bye” to your friends.
Glossary
operant conditioning (n) a theory of behaviour whereby behaviour is changed and the subject is in control of their behaviour
positive reinforcement (n) offering something pleasureable after a behaviour to encourage that behaviour to be repeated
Pavlovian reaction (n) referencing Pavlov, a famous scientist who discovered that after a period of pairing a neutral stimulus (a bell) with another stimulus (food) generated salivation even when the food was not present.
ubiquitous (adj)  being everywhere
jackpot (n)  outstanding reward, big win

How well do you know your pooch? Do you know what he means when we wags his tail or yawns? Taryn Ozorio takes a closer look at man’s best friend. 

The dog, canis lupus familiaris, that exists today was bred from the wild wolf. Crucial to understanding dogs is understanding the lives of their ancestor, the wolf.

Pack mentality

Wild wolves lived in packs, where one dog (usually a male) would be the pack leader. This dog was responsible for the group’s survival and all the other dogs would give him their loyalty. Wolves are extremely skilled hunters, they are fast, have quick reactions and a strong scent of smell. They teach the younger wolves how to hunt through play and practice.

Wolves became domesticated when they found prey near rubbish dumps of humans. Humans came to realise that the wolf was good for security and could help them hunt for food. So we took them in and made them part of our family, we became their pack. We look after them and in return they give us their loyalty and love.

How dogs communicate

If dogs could speak, what do you think they would say? I’m tough and scary, stay back! Let’s play! Relax…

Actually, dogs already communicate these things to us. They use body language. So, the best way to find out what they’re thinking, whether they are friendly or not, is through watching their body language. Here are some examples, some you might already know or recognise in your dog.

When a dog yawns and looks away from you, he may mean calm down, relax or I’m feeling a bit threatened.

When a dog growls, their hackles stand out and they stare at you straight in the eyes, they are trying to be intimidating and are likely to bite and fight.

If a dog is holding his ball and wagging his tail, he probably wants to play.

If a dog is wagging his tail and smiling (mouth open, tongue hanging out), he is being friendly and is happy to be patted.

If a dog is licking his lips and avoiding direct eye contact, he is probably scared or anxious. He might even be wagging his tail, but in this case it does not mean he is happy.

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Send in your dog problems, stories or questions and we’ll discuss a problem or teach you a trick each week.

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The Trick: “Spin”

Impress your friends with this cool trick.

Get a stick and mark the end with a contrasting colour, I’ve used tape.

1. Reward your dog each time they touch the stick with their nose (5 sessions of 20).
2. Move the stick in a circle and reward each time they touch. Start out with lots of touches per circle (repeat 20 times) and gradual reduce the number of touches until they are going faster and faster!
3. When they are doing it perfectly you can now say “Spin” before your wave the stick in a circle. Soon you will be able to do the motion just with your hands.

<BOX>

Glossary

body language (n) nonverbal communication, usually through facial expressions, posture, etc.

domesticate (v) to tame an animal so that it can live with humans

mentality (adj) state of mind, view

pack (n) group/family of dogs

intimidate (v) to fill with fear

crucial (adj) important

Mahjong, a competitive sport

Mahjong is a family game in Hong Kong. But there are also people who play competitively-the Mahjong pros. This weekend they will be competing in the World Series of Mahjong.

From 19-21 September the World Series of Mahjong will be held in Macau. The top prize is US$500,000. They will be playing the World Series of Mahjong rules, developed by Hongkonger Alan Kwan.

Twenty-five year old Jenn Barr will be competing in that tournament. Originally from Seattle, she now lives in Japan and is a Mahjong pro. She says, “Mahjong is a passion and a career for me.” She moved to Tokyo for college and started playing Mahjong. “I started training with some of the top professionals and a year after that I was in the league and featured in Konami’s Mahjong Fight Club game.”

She entered the World Series last year and came 114^th , she says she didn’t train enough and made some errors.

“I made a read on a hand and ignored it at one point and that really killed my score. I won’t make that mistake this year.”

Local retiree Hui Chung Lai won the World Series when he beat three other finalists with a total score of 423.11 points.

He told The Student Standard, “I felt like [I was] dreaming when they announced my name as the champion. I have never participated in any international or regional mahjong contest. Last year was my first time to join such an event. I think I am just lucky!”

He has been playing since he was 13 years old; that’s over 50 years. He still plays with his friends, who now rely on his Mahjong prowess even more than before.

“Whenever they have arguments or questions on playing mahjong with their own friends, they will ask me for advice and regard me as the “judge”.”

He has been in training to retain his title: “I have practised more frequently with my friends, especially with those who knows how to play with the World Series Mahjong rules. I have also bought a new set of mahjong which looks similar to those used in the tournament, with [the] numbers on the corner of each mahjong tile.”

Jenn Barr hopes to do a lot better this year, she will be spending two weeks in Hong Kong before the event, training and practising.

“I’ve come up with some new strategies for these rules. I am sure that I will do better this year than I did last year. I know that if any of the top pro’s from Japan come to play then they will go very far. Most of us play 5-8 hours a day, 5-6 days per week, so we see a lot more hands than most of the recreational players.”

Her tips for new players include having “nerves of steel”. She says, “It takes a lot of practice and patience to be good. No player can win every single hand, so you have to know when to let someone else win and conserve your losses. You also have to know when to go for the big hands and when to go for the quick hands.”

Jenn Barr and Hui Chung Lai will be playing against 350+ other players from over 12 different countries in Macau. Mr Hui says,

“It is a precious opportunity for me to [be involved in] such a large-scale international event. I did not expect to gain so much experience from it. I have also met a few new good friends at the tournament.”

BOX 1

History of Mahjong

There are several stories about the origins of Mahjong. The first is that Confucius invented it around 500BC. Another more likely theory is that Mahjong is derived from a card game (probably played with tiles) called Madiao. It was developed during the Ming Dynasty and it bears a lot of similarities to Mahjong.

In the late 18^th century the modern game became popular. It might have been created by Army officers, two brothers in Ningpo or a noble in Shanghai. Nevertheless, it quickly spread all over China and was exported to the West soon after.

In 1949, Mahjong was banned by the Chinese Communist Party as it was a gambling game and represented the excesses of capitalism. The game was slowly revived after the Cultural Revolution and was made a national treasure and national sport in the 1990s.

BOX 2

WSoM Etiquette

1. No chatting during play.

2. Try to keep discussions quiet in between hands.

3. Don’t bang your tiles about during play.

4. No standing or leaving your seat during play.

5. Check with the Judge if you need to bend down or collect something from beneath your chair.

6. No phones or electronic devices allowed during play.

7. You may be subject to a body search if you do something suspicious during play.

BOX 3

Gambling, an addiction

Betting on games can be a fun past time to play with friends and family. However, people do become addicted to gambling and neglect their work, family and friends in favor of chasing the elusive big win. They may even play with money they don’t have or go into debt to finance their gambling habit.

Glossary

gamble (v) to risk money on an outcome, usually on games of skill and/or chance

do something suspicious (phrase) when someone’s behaviour or actions suggest illegality or misconduct

debt (n) something that is owed, when you owe more than you possess

derive (v) to be traced from a point of origin

pro (n) a slang term for something who plays sports professionally, as their full time job

shuffle (v) to mix cards into a random order

entrepreneur (n) starting and running your own business against the odds

etiquette (n) rules of conduct, social behaviour

prowess (n) exceptional ability, skill

lit. (abbr) literally

literally (adv) meaning, translated word for word