Supply chain meeting, first stop: 潮汕 (Chaoshan)! Building a lighter version of an existing product sounds simple from the outside — just use less material — but in practice it means real legwork: a supply-chain trip to China, kicking off at Chaoshan Railway Station as we start a manufacturing-focused itinerary.

Next stop is Chaihuo Makerspace in Shenzhen, a well-known makerspace with deep experience turning early-stage hardware ideas into manufacturable products — exactly the kind of partner we need as we work out how to redesign Mujong for weight and portability rather than simply reordering the same molds.

Press features and launch events make for better photographs than a supply-chain meeting at a railway station, but this trip might be just as important to what comes next — the unglamorous middle where “we should build a lighter version” turns into logistics, freight, and factory conversations. More soon!

Every version of Mujong so far has been the same physical object at its core: a case, a set of tiles, a board — sturdy, complete, and, by design, not exactly pocket-sized. That’s a reasonable trade-off for a game meant to live on a classroom shelf or a family’s living-room table. It’s a much less reasonable one for a family trying to bring Mujong along on a trip, or a teacher moving between classrooms with a bag already full of sheet music and instruments.

We’ve carried Mujong Classic everywhere this past year — piano showrooms, conference booths, school classrooms — case by case, box by box, by a team that includes an eight-year-old. That’s exactly the pattern that got us thinking: what if there were a lighter way to bring Mujong wherever the music takes you?

So we’ve started developing a smaller, lighter version of Mujong, built around the same underlying game but designed to travel. It’s still early days, but we’re excited about where this is headed — stay tuned for updates as it develops!