Billy Danato, age 13, of Kalispell, Mont., for his question:

WHERE DID MAH JONGG ORIGINATE?

Mah jongg is a game that has been played by people in many parts of the world since about 500 B.C. The game originated in China.

Mah jongg is similar in many ways to card games. However, small rectangular tiles engraved with Chinese drawings and symbols are used instead of playing cards.

The mah jongg "deck" is made up of 136 standard tiles and several additional tiles. In the Orient, players use eight additional tiles.

In the United states, the number of additional tiles varies from year to year, as determined by the National Mah Jongg League.

The object of the game is to form winning combinations of tiles by drawing from a pile of tiles. Tiles have symbols called dots, craks and bams. In addition each mah jongg set has four tiles of each wind (north, east, west, and south) as well as dragon and flower tiles.

Four persons usually play mah jongg, but two, three, five or six can also play. Each person plays for himself. Usually each player stars with chips equalling 5,000 points. Losers give chips to the winner equal to the value of the winning hand.