Mahjong Players Who Are Visually Impaired
Click HERE for the original article on Fukuchi Makoto's A Former Tenhou Meijini Blog.
*Translation of the original article start below*
There were 2 participants who were visually-impaired at the National Cultural Festival.
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It also seems like the event will be using Braille tiles for the visually-impaired players.
16:54 - November 17th 2018
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Mahjong played by the visually-impaired players. It was different compared to the matches i’ve Seen before. Seems like there are so many variants on how to play the game.
17:23 - November 17th 2018
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Matches between the visually-impaired players.
18:59 - November 17th 2018
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This one is also played by visually-impaired players, but they are not hiding their hands with the card board. The draws and discards are done by the staff. The players say the tile that they discard. When Riichi, they call the discarded tile again.
19:05 - November 17th 2018
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Another table played by visually-impaired players. The main representative from the Kenko Mahjong Kyokai is building the wall for them.
19:02 - November 17th 2018
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When the visually-impaired players are in a match, the points moved among players are also done by the staff.
19:08 - November 17th 2018
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If you actually touch the tiles, it feels like letters.
This felt amazing.
They are just symbols during within a game, but if you actually feel the tiles, you will see the many merits from it, and it feels good re-realizing that!
4:47 - November 18th 2018
Braille tiles were made from regular tiles by adding Braille stickers on them.
Since they are regular tiles, you can custom them with auto table tiles too.
Manzu had 「Ma」, Pinzu had 「Hi」, Souzu had 「So」on them, along with the numbers.
And it seemed that they had in on both top and bottom of the tiles.
The speed of the game was almost the same as the regular tabes.
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I was able to interview one of the volunteer instructors who teach the Braille Mahjong classes (for the visually-impaired classes).
13:46 - November 21st 2018