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CNN 5 Good Things
How about a break — for your ears? At CNN, we know the news can be a lot to take in. So each week, 5 Good Things offers you a respite from the heavy headlines and intense news cycle. Treat yourself to something fun and uplifting every Saturday as we share the bright side of life from all over the globe.
Mahjong: It’s Not Just Your Grandma’s Game Anymore
CNN 5 Good Things
Sep 13, 2025
A new generation is falling in love with a centuries-old game. These women 65 and older clean local ponds by diving for trash (and have a blast doing it). She lost her dad in the Twin Towers – but the FDNY made sure he was still part of her wedding day. A doctor was told he would die, but he found a treatment for his disease everyone else had missed. Plus, the music program that teaches kids jazz and so much more.
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Host/Producer: Krista Bo
Producers: Eryn Mathewson and Leying Tang
Showrunner: Felicia Patinkin
Special Thanks: Nadia Kounang
Episode Transcript
Krista Bo
00:00:00
Hey there, welcome, welcome. I hope you're having a good day. I know this week was pretty tough so let's jump right into the good stuff.
Susan Bauer
00:00:07
We come back from a dive and people on the shore say what are they smoking? I want what they've got.
Krista Bo
00:00:14
These women are redefining what it means to make a splash after age 65. And firefighters kept a bride's late father's memory alive on her big day. Plus,
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
00:00:24
How many hidden cures are just sitting in there that we're using them for this disease or that disease, but they can also use for that disease and that disease.
Krista Bo
00:00:31
He was a med student with a terminal prognosis until he found a cure hiding in plain sight. And now he's on a mission to find more. From CNN, I'm Krista Bo, and this is Five Good Things. Stick with us, we'll be right back.
Krista Bo
00:00:53
When the game of Mahjong comes up, I think of my grandma, or Queen Anne, as we used to call her. She passed away a few years ago, but my cousins and I have been wanting to learn the game that she loved so much. And turns out, we'd have plenty of people to play with because Mahjong is having a major resurgence.
Mahjong player 1
00:01:12
And I'm absolutely addicted. I play any chance I get. You're using your brain power. There's strategy involved.
Mahjong player 2
00:01:20
People get all decked out. People wear their Mahjong gear, their earrings, and, you know.
Mahjong player 3
00:01:24
I love the moment when I figure things out and saying, pong! That moment is really exhilarating.
Mahjong player 4
00:01:31
It's so incredible to be able to take this game that we used to watch our parents play and really make it our own.
Krista Bo
00:01:36
'For the uninitiated, Mahjong is a Chinese tile-based game of strategy and luck, developed in the 19th century that today is being discovered by a new generation of players.
TikTok ad
00:01:47
On Thursdays at General Lee's in Chinatown, it's Mahjong night. I love playing Mahjong, but it's so hard finding people who know how to play, so this is perfect.
Krista Bo
00:01:54
'Social clubs, restaurants, and bars like this one are hosting Mahjong game nights and afternoons across the country. Eventbrite has even recorded a 179% uptick in U.S.-based Mahjong events on its platform from 2023 to 2024.
Nicole Wong
00:02:11
The game is just really fun. It's like a reason to go out. It's a game that builds community.
Krista Bo
00:02:16
Nicole Wong lives in Oakland, California, and she's the author of Mahjong: House Rules from across the Asian Diaspora and founder of the Mahjoung Project, which documents her family's style of play.
Nicole Wong
00:02:27
Classical Chinese Mahjong or traditional Chinese Mahjong. It's really close to how people were playing Mahjong a hundred years ago.
Krista Bo
00:02:36
She's not surprised by Mahjong's rise in popularity and says films like Crazy Rich Asians helped raise its profile in pop culture.
Constance Wu
00:02:43
My mom taught me how to play. She told me Mahjong would teach me important life skills. Negotiation, strategy, cooperation.
Krista Bo
00:02:55
That's the iconic scene where two of the main characters play and discuss the game's importance, and the movie was produced by CNN's parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.
Krista Bo
00:03:03
There's so many variations, like American mahjong, Singaporean, and Japanese. Nicole learned to play from her grandparents, who emigrated from China to New Zealand. And she says her favorite part of the game is hands down.
Nicole Wong
00:03:20
Winning! I'm kidding, I mean, it's pretty fun. I think because I really enjoy bringing this game to people and especially people who may have played as children but have forgotten the rules or have never learned how to play, right now my favorite part is like helping them come back to it.
Susan Bauer
00:03:43
It's just so exciting. It's so adventurous. When we find stuff underwater, you never know what you're gonna find, so it's a treasure hunt.
Krista Bo
00:03:54
For a group of older women in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, real treasure isn't buried gold, it's sunken garbage. Susan Bauer is the founder of Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage, or OLAUG for short.
Susan Bauer
00:04:07
The group is a group of 30 women between 65 and 85, and I'm the 85.
Krista Bo
00:04:13
'The retired psychologist started the group back in 2018 after falling in love with the turtles who lived in Cape Cod's ponds. What began as a trash cleanup swim with two friends and a curious kayaker has turned into a full-blown operation with 45 people on the wait list to join.
Susan Bauer
00:04:29
Now we get one to 200 pounds each time we dive.
Krista Bo
00:04:33
They work with the homeowners associations who supply kayaks, snacks, and trash bags. And when they're done, they make sure the fruits of their labor make it to the dump. Today, the ladies are wrapping up the final dive of the summer season that started in May. Teams made up of two swimmers and a kayaker with a bucket between her legs searched different sections of each pond.
Susan Bauer
00:04:52
'And then the race is on, the game is on. We've gotten 12, 15-foot boards, 80-pound toilet, back of a Corvette, a tire. We find stuff that's been in the ponds for over 100 years.
Krista Bo
00:05:08
'65-Year-old Sarah Spengler is one of the group's swimmers, who came for the swimming and stayed for the camaraderie.
Sarah Spengler
00:05:16
And I shouldn't be remiss about saying how much we laugh about it. I mean, when somebody pulls something up from the bottom that's new and different, we all have to admire it and give it a lot of applause and appreciation.
Krista Bo
00:05:37
And for Susan, the real magic isn't just the clean ponds, it's what the dives unlock.
Susan Bauer
00:05:43
In an age where life is tough but adventure is rare, we satisfy a hunger for really being alive. We come back from a dive and people on the shore say, what are they smoking? I want what they've got.
Krista Bo
00:06:00
For the last several years on September 11th, Kristin Marino and her family would visit Ground Zero in New York City to honor her late father, New York city firefighter, Kenneth Marino.
Kristin Marino
00:06:10
He was a firefighter with Rescue 1 in New York City, FDNY, and he went into the Twin Towers and he never came home.
Krista Bo
00:06:21
She was only three and a half years old when she lost her father.
Kristin Marino
00:06:24
I was just the biggest daddy's girl, so we had that bond.
Krista Bo
00:06:29
So when Kristin and her fiance, country artist Noah Schnacky, got engaged, she wasn't sure if she even wanted to have a wedding without her dad there.
Noah Schnacky
00:06:37
She said at some point in the journey, if we do have a wedding, it'd be really special if you wouldn't mind doing it in New York so that my dad can be represented. Because I feel like that's his city and that's where he's at. And as soon as she said that, I was like, done. There is no other place.
Krista Bo
00:06:50
And on the big day late last month, Kenneth's FDNY unit showed up in force to honor Kristin and her dad. Nine new and retired Rescue 1 firefighters in uniform were lined up for Kristin as she stepped outside of the Plaza Hotel where she was staying, bringing everyone to tears.
Kristin Marino
00:07:06
It was just, I can't even put into words. I feel like my dad was standing there with them, just smiling. They stopped their busy lives to be a part of my day and to honor my dad. And I just am so grateful.
Krista Bo
00:07:19
The firefighters escorted her and her family to the wedding venue blocks away.
Kristin Marino
00:07:23
My poppy, his dad walked me down the aisle, which was really special, and then we had my dad's formal firefighter jacket on a chair next to my mom sitting there. And then Noah actually wrote vows to my dad.
Noah Schnacky
00:07:39
It was really special to get to honor him just by reminding her that like, I feel like it's my job on earth to love her the way that he would.
Wedding recording
00:07:48
Noah, you may not be surprised.
Kristin Marino
00:07:51
My dad was just there the whole entire time and I'm just so grateful for all the firemen and everyone involved.
Krista Bo
00:08:00
'Dr. David Fajgenbaum turned a life-threatening diagnosis into a breakthrough. And as he told CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, his journey began when he was in med school and learned that his mother had brain cancer.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
00:08:13
When I got the phone call from my dad saying, David, your mom has brain cancer, that just changed everything for me, Sanjay. I made a promise to her just before she passed where I said, mom, I'm gonna dedicate the rest of my life trying to find treatments for people like you. And then in my third year of med school here at Penn, I just got critically ill and everything changed.
Krista Bo
00:08:31
That was 15 years ago, when doctors diagnosed him with a rare and deadly condition called Castleman's disease.
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
00:08:37
The doctors told my family I wasn't gonna make it. My family said their goodbyes to me. A priest came into my room and read me my last rites.
Krista Bo
00:08:44
So David did what most patients can't. He analyzed his own blood samples and lymph nodes, looking for clues everyone else could have missed. And he found one, too much of a specific protein indicative of a wildly overactive immune system.
Krista Bo
00:08:58
'He knew how his body produced the protein, so what if he could turn it off? That's when he realized repurposing a decades-old organ transplant drug called Sirolimus could save his life. He's been in remission for more than 11 years. And the life-saving drug costs him just $20 bucks a month.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:09:17
You saved your own life. What point did you say, hey look, I need to widen the mission?
Dr. David Fajgenbaum
00:09:21
Sanjay, I've never been able to walk past a CVS since then without just thinking to myself, how many hidden cures are just sitting in there that we're using them for this disease or that disease, but they can also be used for that disease and that disease.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:09:34
Gives me goosebumps.
Krista Bo
00:09:35
'Now Dr. Fagenbaum is using the same approach to save others through Every Cure, the biotech nonprofit organization he co-founded in 2022. It's work that's earned him the title of CNN Champion for Change.
Krista Bo
00:09:48
He and his team have helped repurpose 14 drugs so far, offering new hope to people with diseases that once had very little.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
00:09:55
We're using old drugs in new ways, making sure that no drug falls through the cracks and no patient suffers if there's a treatment that already exists for them.
Melissa Walker
00:10:07
'I always think of jazz as the only place where you can get an eight-year-old and an octogenarian on this stage together doing something productive.
Krista Bo
00:10:14
We'll tell you about an organization that sees jazz as the ultimate education tool. Stick with us. We'll be right back.
Jazz House Kids rehearsal
00:10:26
2, ready, go!
Melissa Walker
00:10:27
Hen you come to the Jazz House, you see who matters most, everyone.
Krista Bo
00:10:31
That's Melissa Walker. She's the founder of Jazz House Kids, a community arts organization that helps young people learn and create jazz music.
Student singing jazz song
00:10:39
'Ooba, ooba, wee, wee-wee-le-dee
Krista Bo
00:10:41
'It's based in Montclair, New Jersey and offers music classes, instruments. And even studio time to students at under-resourced schools in the state. Melissa grew up in a family that loved rhythm and blues and soul music. And she says jazz does something special for kids and adults.
Melissa Walker
00:11:04
'I always think of jazz as the only place where you can get an 8-year-old and an octogenarian on this stage together doing something productive.
Krista Bo
00:11:11
Since 2002, nearly 60,000 students have participated in the program, which teaches both music and life lessons.
Jazz House student 1
00:11:20
Growing up was tough, music was really like the main thing that helped me.
Jazz House student 2
00:11:26
I was able to have direction and make it to college.
Jazz House student 3
00:11:29
Jazz was the one place in society where I was celebrated for being Indian.
Melissa Walker
00:11:37
'Jazz just improves and boosts their achievement. You have to have that focus, set goals, manage your time, be able to make real-time life decisions. My greatest reward is seeing lives changed and transformed.
Krista Bo
00:11:58
You can learn more about Melissa Walker, Dr. David Fajgenbaum, and six other inspiring trailblazers who are making positive changes in communities and businesses on a special program called Champions for Change. That airs tonight, September 13th at 10 p.m. Eastern on CNN.
Krista Bo
00:12:17
All right, that's all for now. Join us tomorrow for the next edition of CNN One Thing about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Host David Rind speaks with one of his supporters and with a political science professor from Johns Hopkins University to learn about Kirk's impact and where his movement and the country goes from here. Thanks so much for listening. Take care. Till next time.
