Method · Feature 01

How to Write the Women Who Shaped Mahjong Back Into the Record

A documentary framework for contribution, context, evidence, omission, and the limits of heroic storytelling.

Working outcomeA profile plan centered on specific work and checkable evidence.

Begin with the work

Ask what the subject taught, organized, designed, published, preserved, funded, documented, or changed—and for whom.

Build context around agency

Gender, race, migration, class, family, commerce, and institutions shaped opportunity without reducing a life to a symbol.

  • Use primary records where possible.
  • Credit collaborators and communities.
  • Mark gaps instead of smoothing them.

Avoid the lone-hero correction

Restoring one name should not erase the network that made the work possible. Biography adds accountability to history, not a new myth.

Keep the boundary visible

General history belongs to SagesMahjong; beginner instruction belongs to NewToMahjong; generic gifts do not belong here.