[RADIOLAB INTRO]

ROBERT KRULWICH: Are we—are we ready?

JAD ABUMRAD: I think we are. Maybe ...

ROBERT: You have to get in closer.

JAD: Yeah, yeah.

IAN FRAZIER: Oh, okay.

JAD: Oh, we should do the thing. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

ROBERT: The podcast.

SOREN WHEELER: Could you just tell us who you are?

IAN FRAZIER: Well, I don't believe I'm going to reveal that.

ROBERT: [laughs]

ROBERT: And we're gonna start today's podcast with this international man of mystery.

JAD: Who are you really?

IAN FRAZIER: No, I'm Ian Frazier.

ROBERT: Ian is a writer for the New Yorker magazine. And he's written a bunch of wonderful books.

IAN FRAZIER: Travels in Siberia and other books of non-fiction and humor.

ROBERT: And we had Ian come to visit us because we were working together on a show about games, which we just aired.

JAD: And in that show, we ended up talking about ...

ROBERT: Baseball, football, basketball, checkers, chess. But Ian says there was a game that we totally ignored.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Tic-tac-toe! Tic-tac-toe! Tic-tac-toe! Tic-tac-toe! Tic-tac-toe!]

IAN FRAZIER: Yeah, tic-tac-toe.

ROBERT: All right, so what's the deal with you and tic-tac-toe? I mean, you learned it at age five, I'm assuming, like everybody?

IAN FRAZIER: Exactly like everybody else. Of course.

ROBERT: Okay.

IAN FRAZIER: But I mean, as you get older, it's one of the first sort of levels of sophistication that you reach, that you know how to get a draw in every tic-tac-toe game. And you learn that at about age, maybe six, I would say. And after that it's just formality. It's ...

JAD: It's sort of a developmental milestone, gaming-wise.

IAN FRAZIER: It is, it is. But when you realize ...

ROBERT: You're allowed to be sophisticatedly bored by the game.

IAN FRAZIER: Right, and then you go, "Oh, yes. I'm very good at that."

ROBERT: So you— you reached the mature age of six and achieved a certain amount of tic-tac-toe sophistication.

IAN FRAZIER: I would say I was a grandmaster.

JAD: But the problem is, when you get to that grandmaster point, everybody else is a grandmaster, too, and so everything is a draw and the game basically dies.

IAN FRAZIER: Right.

ROBERT: And so, like the rest of us, Ian stopped playing tic-tac-toe. But then, when he was Well, into his middle life, you might say.

IAN FRAZIER: Oh, this would have been in—this would have been about 10 years ago.

ROBERT: He ran into something that made him think, "Well, maybe tic-tac-toe can still do something for me."

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Tic-tac-toe! Tic-tac-toe!]

IAN FRAZIER: Right, right.

JAD: What happened?

IAN FRAZIER: Well, I went to Russia and I traveled all over. And I was in Chukotka, which is the part of the Russian Far East opposite Alaska. It's not a great distance, but it's an enormous distance in terms of culture. And at that time, my Russian language was very weak and I was staying with this— a young couple who had a six year old son named "Igor." And because of the level of my language, I got along very well with preschool children.

ROBERT: "Hello, I am a student."

IAN FRAZIER: Right. And that didn't seem, like, ridiculous to a six year old. It seemed great. and he actually could speak some English. He had, like, about eight or ten words, and the first thing Igor said to me was, "How do you do?"

JAD & ROBERT: [laughs]

IAN FRAZIER: And he was just incredibly cute and a nice kid. And his shirts—you know, Russian kids' shirts are buttoned up at the neck like that. And he was very, very, very serious. And so we were just hanging out and I was able to talk to him.

ROBERT: And then, on a whim, really, he said ...

IAN FRAZIER: I said, "Well, let's—let's play tic-tac-toe." And I ...

JAD: How'd you get that idea?

ROBERT: Yeah.

IAN FRAZIER: Because it was just something to do with the kid. I don't even remember how we got that idea. But we were just sitting around and I explain the game to him, and he had never heard of it.

JAD: Really?

ROBERT: So you drew—you drew the classic shape of a tic tac toe.

IAN FRAZIER: Right.

ROBERT: To this boy. And he stares and says, "So what's this? Like, some kind of cross, or whatever?" He didn't know what it was?

IAN FRAZIER: He had no idea what it was.

JAD: Wow.

IAN FRAZIER: And I just showed him by drawing how you do this, Xs and Os. And he picked it up, I mean, he understood what it was. And then we started playing and he very quickly got the principle, but I, to be honest, was clobbering him.

JAD: [laughs]

ROBERT: Was there a certain kind of joy?

IAN FRAZIER: Just like, uh uh. That's not where the O goes. And then, there's three X's, pal. You're outta here. And he would be quite crushed, like, "Oh, no! I lost again!"

JAD & ROBERT: [laughs]

IAN FRAZIER: But it's really fun to play tic-tac-toe with someone who doesn't know how because you're just walkin' all over them and just putting Xs and Os and just ...

ROBERT: Is this fair? I mean, is this something a mature ...

IAN FRAZIER: It was—okay, okay. Technically, it was not fair.

JAD: Well, define the word 'clobbering.' Are you talking, like ...

IAN FRAZIER: Oh, I mean, game after game.[00:05:00.07] And it didn't take very many moves for me to win. So I stayed with them before we made this trip into the tundra. And we went out into the tundra. We were there for a week or 10 days or something. And then I came back and stayed with them again. I do not believe he had been playing tic-tac-toe in my absence, but somehow he had gotten better.

ROBERT: Hmm.

JAD: [laughs]

IAN FRAZIER: And so we had very, very ordinary and frustrating games, from my point of view, as we came back. I didn't win as readily at all. I didn't lose.

ROBERT: Well ...

IAN FRAZIER: But ...

ROBERT: Did you feel a slight urge to go to the nearby school?

JAD: [laughs]

IAN FRAZIER: [laughs]

ROBERT: Find new—find new fodder?

IAN FRAZIER: Well, Siberian tic tac toe hustler.

ROBERT: [laughs] That's what I'm saying.

IAN FRAZIER: Was how—in elementary school, of course, was how I, you know, paid for several years, I paid for my New York City apartment. I later checked, and listeners may contradict me, but as far as I know, this game is unknown in Russia. And I've asked Russian friends ...

JAD: Unknown completely?

IAN FRAZIER: Unknown completely.

JAD: Six years old and up?

IAN FRAZIER: And up.

ROBERT: In Eastern Russia? On the Sib—in deep Siberia?

IAN FRAZIER: Well, I was in deep Siberia, but in the cities, I have not met anybody who knows this game.

JAD: Moscow.

IAN FRAZIER: Not Moscow.

ROBERT: Not Moscow?

IAN FRAZIER: I've asked people. I didn't go around these cities and go, "Do you know tic tac toe?"

ROBERT: What if it didn't get to Minsk?

JAD: What—so finish that sentence. [laughs]

ROBERT: How? How wide is the shadow of non-tic-tac-toe-dom? I mean ...

JAD: It just seems ...

ROBERT: I mean you established that it's not in Eastern Russia. Maybe—maybe you could go to Japan and they wouldn't know how to play it. I mean, I don't know.

IAN FRAZIER: Well, it would be interesting just to find out where tic-tac-toe is elsewhere.

JAD: And where it isn't.

ROBERT: Yeah.

IAN FRAZIER: Not that I'm gonna do it myself.

ROBERT: No, no, no.

JAD: This could be one of these— this could be one of these crowd-sourcing opportunities.

IAN FRAZIER: Why is that?

JAD: Well, we could ask people to help map it for us. ‘Cause what if there are like whole corners of the globe that are virginal territory?

ROBERT: So you could go to playgrounds and you could, like, walk in ...

JAD: And say, "Hey kids!"

ROBERT: Swish them ...

JAD: "Come here!"

ROBERT: So we decided to test this proposition.

JAD: After we talked to Ian, we put a call on our Facebook page asking for people to help us make a map. And we got responses!

[CALLER: Hello. I am coming to you from Gwangju, South Korea.]

JAD: Actually, lots.

[CALLER: The north of Iran, near the Caspian Sea.]

[CALLER: Croatia.]

[CALLER: Poznan, Poland.]

[CALLER: Istanbul, Turkey.]

[CALLER: Christchurch, New Zealand.]

[CALLER: The Philippines!]

[CALLER: I'm here in Seattle, Washington.]

[CALLER: Costa Rica.]

[CALLER: The Netherlands.]

[CALLER: Argentina.]

[CALLER: Namibia.]

[CALLER: Japan.]

[CALLER: Dublin, Ireland.]

[CALLER: The outskirts of Aarhus in Denmark.]

[CALLER: It's a typically hot day here in Dubai and ...]

JAD: Instructions were pretty simple. Grab a cellphone, whatever you've got that can record, go out ...

[CALLER: Now, let's get on with our business.]

JAD: And take a survey.

[CALLER: So I think we found our first victim.]

[CALLER: Here with have some nice people walking by.]

[CALLER: [foreign language]]

[CALLER: [foreign language]]

[CALLER: Hello sir, have you heard of ...]

[CALLER: [foreign language]]

[CALLER: [foreign language]]

[CALLER: ...a game called tic-tac-toe?]

[CALLER: [foreign language]]

[CALLER: Who here has ever heard of the game tic-tac-toe?]

[CALLER: tic-tac-toe.]

[CALLER: tic-tac-toe.]

JAD: So here are the results, which may surprise you. We'll go country by country. Everybody interviewed a lot of people. So what you will hear is representative. We'll start with Japan.

[CALLER: Do you know tic-tac-toe?]

[INTERVIEWEE: Tic-tac-toe?]

[CALLER: Know this game?]

[ INTERVIEWEE: No.]

[CALLER: No?]

JAD: Japan, no.

[INTERVIEWEE: No, no.]

JAD: Argentina, no.

[CALLER: She says, "No!"]

[INTERVIEWEE: No.]

[CALLER: But you're ...]

JAD: Ireland, no.

[CALLER: Do you know what it is, sir?]

[INTERVIEWEE: No.]

[CALLER: No one knows how to play tic-tac-toe.]

JAD: Namibia?

[INTERVIEWEE: Yes sir?]

JAD: No.

[INTERVIEWEE: No.]

JAD: Switzerland, no.

[CALLER: tic-tac-toe?]

JAD: Turkey?

[INTERVIEWEE: No.]

JAD: Croatia?

[INTERVIEWEE: No.]

JAD: New Zealand?

[INTERVIEWEE: Tic-tac-toe? Is it a dance?]

[CALLER: No, it's a game. So you've never played tic-tac-toe?]

[INTERVIEWEE: No! I haven't!]

JAD: Iran?

[CALLER: And the answer is ... no.]

JAD: So, amazingly it seemed like huge chunks of the globe do not know tic-tac-toe.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Booya!]

JAD: So a tic-tac-toe hustler could clean up!

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Cha-ching!]

JAD: Or forget hustling, maybe you just wanna believe there are still some blank spots left on the globe. Well, here you are!

ROBERT: Yes!

JAD: But just to be safe, we asked everybody to go out, not just with their cellphones, but with a pen and a paper, so that when someone says no, they could draw them the grid. Just to be certain.

[CALLER: Let me show you.]

[CALLER: We have Xs and we have Os. And if you ...]

[INTERVIEWEE: X?]

[CALLER: Like this, this, or this.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Ah.]

[CALLER: So if I'm X and then ...]

[INTERVIEWEE: Mmm hmm.]

[CALLER: And then it's your turn.]

[CALLER: You try to stop me ...]

[CALLER: And you have to get three in a row.]

JAD: And this is when the answers changed.

[CALLER: So I'm an O. So X.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Ah!]

[CALLER: An X.]

[INTERVIEWEE: [speaks in foreign language]]

[CALLER: Yeah, yeah.]

[INTERVIEWEE: [speaks in foreign language]]

[INTERVIEWEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Oh yeah, I know that. Okay.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Ohhhh.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Haha!]

JAD: Once people saw the grid with the Xs and Os, they were like, "Oh yeah, we know that game. Of course! We just don't call it tic-tac-toe!"

[CALLER: The game has a different name in Turkish?]

[INTERVIEWEE: Yes.]

JAD: In Turkish, it's called ...

[INTERVIEWEE: X, O, X]

JAD: X, O, X. In Serbia ...

[INTERVIEWEE: Eeks Ox.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Eeks Ox.]

[INTERVIEWEE: Eeks Ox.]

[CALLER: Como se llama pero, what's the name in Peru?]

[INTERVIEWEE: Mi chi.]

JAD: In Peru it's mi chi. In South Korea ...]

[CALLER: What do you call it?]

[INTERVIEWEE: On mo, on mo, on mo.]

[CALLER: On wo?]

[INTERVIEWEE: On mo!]

JAD: And in England ...

[CALLER: Which—what is it called?]

[INTERVIEWEE: Dots and crosses.]

[CALLER: Knots and crosses.]

JAD: Knots and crosses.

[CALLER: ...crosses?]

[INTERVIEWEE: Yeah, yeah.]

JAD: Which is also what they call it in Ireland. And ...

[INTERVIEWEE: We call it knots and crosses.]

JAD: New Zealand. Now in Switzerland ...

[INTERVIEWEE: Morpion, it's known in the French language.]

JAD: That is what they call it. In Polish ...

[INTERVIEWEE: w kółko i krzyżyk.]

JAD: It's called w kółko i krzyżyk.

[CALLER: Does everybody in Poland know how to play this? Yeah?]

JAD: And to round things out, in Argentina they call it ...

[INTERVIEWEE: Ta-ta-ti]

JAD: In the Netherlands ...

[INTERVIEWEE: boter-kaas-en-eieren.]

JAD: Iran.

[INTERVIEWEE: No hume]

JAD: Croatia.

[INTERVIEWEE: Križić kružić.]

JAD: And in Costa Rica ...

[INTERVIEWEE: Gato.]

JAD: Gato.

[CALLER: Let's take a little break and look at our notes. See where we stand so far.]

ROBERT: Jad, I'm beginning to get this feeling ...

[CALLER: Seven people I interviewed, seven knew it.]

ROBERT: ... that our dreams of glory ...

[CALLER: They all know what tic-tac-toe is.]

ROBERT: ... that we were gonna— you know, we were gonna be the Genghis Khans of tic-tac-toe ...

JAD: It just may not be supported by the data.

ROBERT: No.

JAD: No. But we got Russia, right?

[phone dialing]

ROBERT: Well, uh ...

[SOREN WHEELER: Hi, Ian Frazier? Hi, this is Soren, I work with Robert ...]

ROBERT: I don't know if we have Russia, actually, because as we were conducting our international tic-tac-toe survey, I got a note from Ian. It was a— it looked like an "uh oh" note, so I called him up and he told me that shortly after we talked to him that first time ...

[IAN FRAZIER: It was maybe even the same day.]

ROBERT: ... he was at a party and there were some Russians.

[IAN FRAZIER: And I just thought, "Okay, let me just make sure about this." And I asked and they said, "Yes, of course there's tic-tac-toe." And I said, "Wow! Everybody told me that this—" And they said, "Yeah, sure everybody knows it." A friend even told me the name of it, it's kruzky nolsky, which is like crosses and zeros. And he said, "Yeah, it's well-known." And the entire thing fell to the ground at that point, my dream of tic tac toe conquest. So sorry! I based this on insufficient data and it's completely wrong. It's not completely wrong, because I did encounter, you know, some people who didn't know, and this one kid, who I really, I can promise you, I just beat the pants off of in tic-tac-toe. He had no idea. But that was my—the limit of my conquest.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Tic-tac-toe. We got three in a row. You, me and the tic-tac-toe. We got three in a row and what could more better. Tic-tac-toe.]

ROBERT: Ian Frazier is the author of Travels in Siberia and whole bunch of wonderful books. For more information, go to our website, Radiolab.org.

JAD: Oh, and before we go, thank you, thank you, thank you to our international tic-tac-toe surveyors.

[CALLER: Ahmed Tadir.]

[CALLER: Suresh Detalla.]

[CALLER: Chris Rones.]

[CALLER: Sedar J'Adimi.]

[CALLER: Chris Venice.]

[CALLER: Salomon Ruskis.]

[CALLER: Christa Hans.]

[CALLER: Tarek Yasin.]

[CALLER: My name is Mara.]

[CALLER: Chelsea Unruh.]

[CALLER: Pavek Hawel.]

[CALLER: This is Mara.]

[CALLER: This is Moria.]

[CALLER: And this is Spondar.]

[CALLER: This is Spanky.]

[CALLER: Nick Glastenbury.]

[CALLER: My name is Jimena.]

[CALLER: Dzimon.]

[CALLER: My name is Attila Lukzha.]

[CALLER: Mr. Djimo.]

[CALLER: And my name is Pedramerfy.]

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.

[ANSWERING MACHINE: Message 18.]

[LISTENER: Hi, this is Chris Wilkinson, Radiolab listener from South Bend, Indiana, calling with the credits. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. Thanks. Have a good day.]

 

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