My Last Address to the 2023 Chicago Area Riichi Tournament

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Now that the event is over, we go forward from here with another tournament as a memory.  Some of us have a collection of tournament participation in the past, while some have this one as their first one.  Either way, it was certainly a collective experience.  Hopefully, plenty of us have found moments, where we can think and/or say: "I like how things are right now."  This thought first appeared at 2022 Riichi Nomi; in turn, I naturally gained the ability to produce puns.  Likewise I was getting plenty of such thoughts this past weekend.  To those who could not attend, future events are around the corner.

Unlike anime conventions with their "post-con depression", everyone should walk away from this tournament feeling good.  Even if your mahjong results were not as you hoped they were, you can be happy for being there feeling the "synergy" or as I had been corrected: "the flow".  As mahjong players, that feeling of "flow" feeds off of each other.  From what I see and account, everyone was having a great time.

If you really want to know, we can hope for things to stay as they are.  However, as depicted by mahjong itself, the dream can only last for so long.  As we go from one mahjong event to the next, we are building a community fed by the game we play.  I can imagine this to be true in many other communities with similar interests.  In riichi-land, we have our own here, plus we have the opportunity to connect to others.  Our community and its relation with others is worth protecting.

Our mahjong community is starkly different now, than pre-Covid.  It's simply much bigger, more active, and more energetic.  Nevertheless, we must be careful going forward and protect what we have in our own communities and clubs.  We all worked too hard to build this.  We have a mahjong community, and we can build it however we wish.  Like our mahjong hands, things can go one way or another depending on how we play the hand.  The same applies at the community level.  With luck, everything will be OK.  Otherwise, we weather the storm (like the Covid pandemic).  We always continue onward.

Finally, I continually agree with Dasuke's notion: as long as we keep playing this game, we'll all see each other again.  This was true this tournament, and this will be true in future tournaments.

It was a pleasure serving everyone.  Till next time.

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