Chinese chess is one of the world’s most popular board games and has been played throughout East Asia for over 1,000 years. The playing pieces have traditionally been identified using Chinese characters, so only those who could read Chinese could play. Now Elephant Chess Club has launched a Chinese chess set in which pieces are identified by symbols on one side and Chinese characters on the reverse side, so that anyone can play this challenging game of strategy. Elephant Chess has also come out with a global version of Shogi, a unique chess variant developed in Japan. The sets come complete with an illustrated instruction manual.