Taixing’s Tiles Turn to Gold as U.S. Mahjong Mania Fuels Factory Frenzy

American enthusiasm for mahjong is doing more than filling living rooms – it’s breathing new life into the eastern Chinese city of Taixing. Shoppers in the United States are now willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a single mahjong set, and manufacturers in Taixing are scrambling to keep up with the surge.

The town’s factories, which had previously faced idle machines and uncertain orders, are now humming with activity as they race to fill export orders. Production lines are working around the clock, and the pace of output has become the talk of the local news.

Locals, who once worried about a slowdown, now joke that every tile truly counts. The unexpected boom shows how a simple, centuries‑old game can become a surprisingly powerful economic catalyst for a community that needed a lift.