About

The Toronto Riichi Club, abbreviated as TORI, was started by Daniel Tutor and Johann Tutor on November 12, 2018 after seeing the lack of riichi activity in Toronto. The club aims to promote Japanese mahjong (a.k.a. riichi) in the Toronto area.

Our logo

The logo of the Toronto Riichi Club is a white dragon tile on a Benjamin Moore Toronto Blue background.

The logo can be interpreted in many ways. Many people just see a white dragon on a blue background. At TORI, we see it a bit differently.

On typical Chinese mahjong sets, the white dragon is represented with a blue rectangle. With the official colours of Toronto being blue and white, the tile seemed to be a perfect fit. To go along with the theme of Japanese mahjong, we used the typical Japanese mahjong style white dragon and used Benjamin Moore Toronto Blue as the background.

Another interpretation of the logo is that the tile is not actually empty. The tile actually shows an elaborate scene of the skyline of Toronto. This includes the CN Tower, birds flying around (“tori” is the Japanese word for “bird”), raccoons roaming the streets and many other things. However, all of these sights are hidden because of snow, a common sight in Toronto for six months of the year.

Yet another way to look at our logo is that we are a blank slate, that we are open to new ideas. At TORI, we are willing to teach any player who comes in and wants to learn how to play.

Finally, one can look at our logo as a lazy effort and a placeholder for a logo that could be under development.

So however you see our logo, let it be known that whenever you see it, think of the Toronto Riichi Club.

Being completely honest, this logo was initially a temporary logo that stuck around too long. It started as a joke: someone on the Mahjong Discord server suggested that the next new mahjong club should be bold and make their logo a white dragon. A lot of ideas were suggested as replacements, and a contest was even held, but in the end, it was this white dragon that stuck.