On May 9, 2026, Hallmark premiered their latest film, “All’s Fair in Love and Mahjong”, a romantic comedy centered around a school nurse whose passion for Mahjong leads her to find community and love after her daughter departs to attend college. Despite the movie’s premise, which necessarily revolves around the centuries-old Chinese game, both the aforementioned school nurse and the carpenter who becomes her romantic interest, played by Fiona Gubelmann and Paul Campbell respectively, are White, as is the director, Jessica Harmon. The movie features only one main character of Chinese descent, played by Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe, who is ethnically half-Scottish and half-Chinese.
The APIDA community deserves representation that centers APIDA culture and APIDA stories, rather than “representation” that appropriates said culture to serve as an interesting, perhaps even exotic, plot device. If the true goal, or even one of the goals, of the movie was to highlight Chinese culture and the game of Mahjong, the movie should have revolved around Chinese characters and their pursuit of community and love. Instead, the film sidelines its only Chinese character to prop up what it truly views as important: the White romance at its core. In light of these artistic decisions, the choice to premiere the film during APIDA Heritage Month feels at best ironic and, more realistically, simply insulting.
Furthermore, the film draws from the broader issue of Mahjong’s Westernization and the rising trend of White-owned businesses creating and selling Mahjong sets with altered tile designs. Of course, non-Chinese people playing Mahjong is, in and of itself, not at all an issue, and can in fact be a wonderful example of cultural exploration and appreciation. However, these White-owned Mahjong businesses are profiting off of Chinese culture by outright erasing the traditional images and characters on the tiles and omitting any mention of the origins of the game, which comes across as appropriative and incredibly disrespectful. Their products are geared specifically toward a White audience who has no knowledge of Mahjong’s history or cultural significance, and they make no attempts to educate their audience on that history and significance.
Unlike these businesses, “All’s Fair in Love and Mahjong” does acknowledge the Chinese origins of the game; in the trailer, Yan Kay Crystal Lowe’s character explicitly explains that Mahjong is “a critical part of Chinese culture.” Given that declaration, why can’t a story about Mahjong and about finding community in Mahjong focus on the people with an inherent cultural connection to the game? Why does this romance have to center White characters to deserve being told?
Visual Credit: Jimmy Chan
Comments are closed.