The tiles
A Hong Kong set holds 144 tiles: three numbered suits of nine ranks with four copies each, four winds, three dragons, and eight bonus tiles that never enter your hand. Everything below is drawn by the same renderer the game uses.
The number is written in Chinese over a red 萬, which means ten thousand. You do not need to read either: the small corner number carries the rank, and it is on every tile in the game too. Nine ranks, four copies of each.
Scores with: Pure One Suit
Canes, counted like matchsticks. Traditional sets draw the 1 as a bird; ours keeps it a single red cane so the rank stays readable at a glance. Runs and triplets work exactly as in the other suits.
Scores with: Common Hand
Circles, drawn from old coins. The third and last of the numbered suits. A winning hand usually mixes all three suits freely; keeping to fewer is where the scoring patterns start.
Scores with: Mixed One Suit
East, South, West and North. Winds never form runs, only pairs and triplets. Two of them matter to you every hand: the wind of your seat, and the wind of the round. A triplet of either pays a faan, and a triplet of both at once pays two.
Scores with: Seat Wind · Round Wind · Small Winds · Great Winds
Red 中, green 發, and the white board 白, drawn as an empty frame. Like winds they never form runs. Any dragon triplet pays a faan on its own, which makes a lone pair of dragons worth holding a little longer than it looks.
Scores with: Dragon Pung · Small Dragons · Great Dragons
Not part of your hand at all. Draw one and it goes face up in front of you, and you draw a replacement from the back of the wall. Each is numbered one to four, matching East, South, West and North: your own number pays a faan at the end, a complete set of four pays two, and finishing with none pays one as well.
Scores with: Matching Flower · Complete Flower Set · No Flowers