Video

CHAN: Over a hundred elementary school students from American schools in Japan
competed in an abacus championship tournament. Let's take a look. It was farewell to electronic calculators, as over a hundred
elementary school students from the United States Airbase in Japan showed-off
their speedy calculating skills using the traditional Japanese abacus on
May 22. 
While latest electronic gadgets and calculators dominate schools
around the world, these young children 
wrapped their brains around an ancient calculation tool.
Competing in The 26th American school Soroban championship tournament,
hundreds of children's fingers flicked beads as fast as they could to solve
simple math quizzes. 'Soroban' means abacus in Japanese. 
 [Michael Berry, American student]: "Soroban is a fun, fun way to calculate not like the calculators
where you just push in a few buttons." Public American schools in U.S. Airbases in Japan have been using the
abacus as part of its Japanese cultural studies courses. [Love Lee, 6-year old student]: "I practice at school and I practice at off base." Soroban is still used among the Japanese especially in elementary
schools for math beginners since the decimal system can be
demonstrated visually with the soroban beads.