Jenn’s Corner #28 : And a Happy New Year
Now with a picture!!
This holiday season was quite special for ReachMahjong.com. As one of our very loyal readers, David, pointed out in a moving e-mail he sent to me, RM is now 2 years old, and that is a feat in today’s internet-age. We also celebrated a successful tournament stop at the Mahjong SuperCup in Macau with an established Team ReachMahjong.
Of course all the thanks go out to all of you that are reading this right now. We have worked really hard for the past 2 years to increase our content and presence in the Mahjong industry throughout the world and not only have all of you given us motivation and ever-increasing reasons to continue with this “project”, you’ve also helped make us known to others throughout the world and even in Japan people are starting to take notice.
I’m proud to announce that in 2009 ReachMahjong.com will add an easy-to-use forum to the site with a new design for the whole site. We’ll also be adding a Japanese version of ReachMahjong.com in January. For 2 years we have been giving all of you the news from the Mahjong scene in Japan, but now is our chance to give everyone in Japan all the news about YOU! We will cover Reach Tournaments all over the world and report on the Japanese players that travel for tournaments as well. Like ReachMahjong.com in it’s infancy, updates will start at only 2-3 times per week, but hopefully in 2 years it will be just as bustling as the current English RM and we’ll have plenty of crossover for the 2 versions of the site.
As for the Mahjong SuperCup, we’ve already reported what a huge success it was. After the tournament I was able to spend some time in Hong Kong playing Mahjong Fight Club with the folks from JMD, a popular forum about Japanese Mahjong in Hong Kong. With nearly 600 members JMD is the best place to get MFC and pro info and rumor has it that I have been mentioned on there a few times.
I spent the week trying out different game centers since MFC is the same price to play throughout the entire area. I visited the one arcade in Macau that has the game (only 4 machines!) as well as 4 or 5 arcades in Hong Kong. Everywhere I went there was someone that said hi and asked for an autograph or a picture. It’s really great to know that Reach is well-accepted in Hong Kong even though the local version of the game is so popular in the culture. Some players had advice for me and others even asked me for advice! How sweet!
The day before I left on Sunday the 21st I joined my good friends from JMD, Antony and Lea in Prince Edward for some live games. I spend a few hours playing with members of the forum and we ended with pictures of the whole group. I have to say that is one of my favorite parts since everyone is always so excited and we do funny poses.
I will certainly visit JMD again and I hope I can bring some of my pro buddies next time. My friends in the Japan Professional Mahjong League are always excited to meet people that play their game outside of Japan and I even hope that someday we can make some tours like this even further than Hong Kong.
Thank you everyone for ANOTHER (it feels so good to be able to say that) great year and look forward to bigger and better from ReachMahjong.com in 2009. We’ve got lots of great ideas and projects up our sleeves and you can bet more people will be joining the team too.
