You can hear the clicking all over Singapore: from an upstairs room in Chinatown; through the louvres of an HDB (Housing and Development Board) flat window; behind the closed shutters of a shophouse on a Sunday or public holiday.

Mahjong - a game that has been played in China since about 500 BC - may be almost as much a national pastime in Singapore as eating and talking about food.

The sound is constant at the Swee Huat Plastic Company, on the second floor of a factory  building in Pereira Road, before moving into Playfair Road. Tiles clatter as they tossed in tumblers or dumped by the hundred into baskets and bags. The high-ceilinged room, with its slowly turning fan, is full of machines: circular saws, electric planes, tumblers. But the process of making mahjong tiles, in this factory at least, is manily manual then.

Established since 1975, the thirteen employees employ the machines, like extra hands, to speed up production rather than replace human labour. The colours of the tiles chosen at Swee Huat: the face is usually white, while the back is a bright colour.

The white and coloured plastic are glued together and then submitted to the countless shavings, polishings and tumblings required to turn them into smooth uniform oblongs with rounded corners; the tiles must be identical, so no regular player can tell one from another by feel.

The final smoothing is done slowly, with lubricating oil, and the flakes of plastic fall like grated coconut. They are then massed flat on a table, smoothed of their roughest edges. Each corner is then individually rounded on a sander, and the tiles are tumbled in water and Pumex, and emory powder imported from Italy.

The more intricate carving designs are carved entirely by hand. The carver holds a knife firmly in place and swiftly twirls the tile to accommodate the design.

Finally the tiles are painted. Four colours are used. The workers quickly applied a large dab of paint to each incised design. The excess paint is later removed with a putty knife, leaving the incised area full of colour, and the tiles are washed again.

In the past, mahjong tiles are made of ivory and bamboo, and the work was done entirely by hand. The trade centred around Middle Road and North Bridge Road. Nowadays it is made of plastic.  Swee Huat Plastic Co has expanded their trade, exporting to South Easst Asia, their manufacturing plant in Hongkong with 70 employees. The company deals in Mahjong, Bacarrat, Rummy, Dominoes, Casino Chips, Games Accessories, etc.