Do your mah jongg tiles look dirty? Do they stick together during play? Are there black spots or a greasy feel? After all, the tiles are touched by many fingers during play. If your tiles don’t get dirty, you’re not playing much mah jongg.
Materials
Most mah jongg tile materials are hard vinyl plastics. Bakelite and catalin constituted the earliest plastics for tiles in the 1950s. See the Mah Jongg Tile Slideshow for materials and current designs.
China, where the game originated, makes mah jongg tiles from bone, ivory, wood, bamboo, and rarely jade or other semi-precious stone. (An aside, if anyone knows where I can get rose quartz or black onyx mah jongg tiles, please let me know. It’s the gemologist in me that covets such a set.)
Whether the tiles are cheap or precious, Chinese, vinyl plastic, or rare natural stones, the following warm soapy water-wash method works well. Save your wood or bamboo tiles for cleaning another way, as they are porous and may absorb water without drying well. Any tiles bonded with laminates made form porous materials are candidates for other methods as well.
Water wash method
Fill a clean kitchen basin full of warm water. Add your favorite dish washing detergent. Immerse a dish cloth or towel in the water, place the tiles in there too, and “mush” the whole business around, but gently. (“Mush” is a term all mah jonggers should know. It means, simply, mixing.) The cloth serves to clean the tiles without having to wipe each one individually.
Carefully release the drain plug so that no tiles go down the drain. (This can happen, thereby rendering your mah jongg set useless for play.) Spray the tiles with warm water to rinse. Put the tiles on a dry kitchen towel. With another one, dry each tile individually. This last step is the only tedious part. You don’t want hard water build-up on your mah jong tiles any more than you want it on your crystal stemware.
All mah jongg materials clean up well with the soapy water wash method, with the exception of wood, bamboo, or porous material laminates. This method should not ruin the hand painting on the tiles, not even for older sets. I have washed antique bakelite tiles from the 1950s by this method with no damage to the painted characters on the face. Tiles that have chipped paint on the face did not get that way from a water wash.
Play clean. Play by the rules. Play to win. And may the tiles be with you!