This is a story from my overland trip through Cambodia in mid-2003. I had traveled overland with a friend from Thailand, toured the ruins of Angkor Wat, used some Soviet military aid (as shown in the picture above), and roamed the streets of Phnom Penh. We planned to spend a few days at Cambodia’s beautiful (yet abandoned) beaches before taking a boat from the coast to the Thai border.

Both of us are keen chess players. The problem was, we’d played each other to the limit—we were just too familiar with each other’s strategy. One guest house in town advertised one-on-one chess matches, so we decided to check it out in hopes of enjoying some new challenges.

The hostel was little more than a shack, and the owner happened to be an elderly German who ran the place with his Khmer girlfriend. It was the off-season and he had no customers—when we arrived, he was sitting at the bar with an Austrian friend.

He agreed to a match and brought out a large chess set. My friend and I played in silence, but the German proprietor and his Austrian loudly discussed strategy with each other after every move. My friend and I didn’t understand a word—they were talking in German. In some respects, it was intimidating: the implication was that they could speak without us understanding, while the two of them both understood English. (Where was Chirol when I needed him!)

But we had our own trick to play. As the game went down to the wire, with each side holding just a few pieces, my traveling companion (a fellow American citizen fluent in Japanese) gave me a detailed strategy—speaking entirely in Japanese. (Failing to find a word for “bishop,” he referred to the piece as “the Christian guy.”) I asked some ‘what if’ questions that he patiently explained (I could afford to make an otherwise dangerous move because my opponent’s reaction would open himself to a fatal counterattack). He finished the explanation of the proposed battle plan by saying, “Of course, if these guys understand Japanese, you’re screwed,” to which I chuckled.

Just as I was about to make my move, my German opponent looked up at me and asked in disbelief, “you guys speak Russian?”

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