Chess.

Will is doing a 3 week course on playing chess for some students and will have a tournament at the end with prizes. He’s been teaching the main rules this last week. I just got a text message from him saying he had a great line from one of his students. “You eat queen me, I eat queen you.” Which 1) I love how direct translations of words in other languages come out in English…..like in Khmer, usually the adjective follows the noun: “I want coke one”, or “ I have hair black”. 2) Also in the Khmer language (or language Khmer), there are so many hierarchical rules one must follow, mostly in regards to age. For example, there are different words that are used for an elderly person when talking about sleeping or eating….. or there are different words in regards to animals, such as eating. If you want to slander something – you can use the word for eat in terms of animals, which is “si” and use it instead of the human form of the word eat which is “nyam” and make the sentence derogatory. One of my favorites which was quoted by a tuk tuk driver of ours: “Polee si loy” – police eat money. OR –in the game of chess “You eat my queen, I’ll eat yours” meaning not just only that I’m going to ‘eat’ your queen, I’m putting your queen at the lower level animal kingdom and Then I’m going to eat her.

Boo yah… or Eat that.