Singaporean vs Taiwanese Mahjong

How Singaporean and Taiwanese mahjong differ — the tile set, the hand, and above all how each one is scored.

	Singaporean	Taiwanese
Also called	Singapore Mahjong	臺灣麻將
Played in	Singapore, Malaysia	Taiwan, diaspora communities
Tiles	148	144
Flowers	4 flowers + 4 seasons, plus 4 unique animal tiles (Cat, Rat, Rooster, Centipede) forming two predator-prey pairs	4 flowers + 4 seasons; drawn flowers are exposed and replaced from the wall, scoring bonus tai outside the hand
Jokers	none	none
Hand size	13	16
Scored in	fan/tai (doubling)	tai (台)
Scoring system	exponential doubling with a house-configurable minimum and limit	additive tai-counting, no exponential doubling
Learning curve	intermediate	intermediate

What sets them apart

Singaporean. Singaporean mahjong plays much like Hong Kong mahjong with a 148-tile set (144 plus four unique animal bonus tiles) and doubling-based scoring whose minimum and limit vary by house rule.

Taiwanese. Taiwanese mahjong is defined by its 16-tile hand (17-tile win: 5 sets + a pair), flowers drawn and replaced into play for bonus tai, and an additive, largely uncapped tai scoring system.

They are scored differently — Singaporean uses exponential doubling with a house-configurable minimum and limit while Taiwanese uses additive tai-counting, no exponential doubling. This is the single biggest practical difference between the two.
The tile sets differ (148 vs 144 tiles).
Hand size differs — Singaporean is built to 13 tiles, Taiwanese to 16.

Singaporean mahjong guide Taiwanese mahjong guide All variants

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