Using Fingers to Solve Math Problems - In Different Countries

Math was never my strong suit at school. The numbers never danced into line for me. So I thought that trying to deal with numbers in a foreign language would be impossible. But it turned out that it is actually possible!

While I was interviewing people for my survey (Finger-Counting In Different Cultures), I found out a dipper information about actual finger-counting system form different countries, not only how people start to count or show numbers, but how they solve complex math problems.

I met a girl in the MAX train, her name was Srividya and she was from India, I took a small interview with her, and she told me that in India they have a different calculating system than most Western countries use. It is mental abacus.

The research showed that this system of counting is being mostly practiced in India, but it also was used in China, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan. Mental calculation is said to improve mental capability, increases speed of response, memory power, and concentration power. The mental abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication; the abacus can also be used to extract square-roots and cubic roots.

This system is impressive display of the mental boost! Form young age, children are able to solve complex math calculation within seconds simply by flicking their fingers thin air. Young children raising and flicking their fingers to keep track of long series of numbers and solve calculations with mind-blowing accuracy. They were apparently taught to use their hands as the beads of an abacus - an ancient calculating tool - to add, subtract, divide, and multiply at the speed of calculator. Also, not only kinds use this imaginary abacus, but adult are also practice it. For example, in the Flash Anzan event at the All Japan Soroban Championship, champion Takeo Sasano, a school clerk in his 30s, break his own world record; he was able to add fifteen three-digit numbers in just 1.7 seconds!!!

As I mentioned above, you can learn this easy math system regardless of how teachers taught you; regardless of your age; regardless of where you were born; and you will boost your mental capability, increases speed of response, memory power, and concentration power.

If you like the information that I found, you actually can go deeper, and get more information about this subject, or learn how to calculate so fast like those kids, by using simple techniques that you can use for your math problems here.

---

Chisanbop came from Korea (chi (ji) finger + sanpŏp (sanbeop) calculation[1] 지산법/指算法). It is another abacus, which uses finger counting method to perform basic mathematical operations. The key, to finger math, is understanding how to count. So here is the basic concept of Chisanbop.

With this method it is possible to display all numbers from 0 to 99 with two hands, and with one (left) hand display 100 .
There are two ways to do calculation with fingers ever hand real

The hands are held in a relaxed posture on or above a table. All fingers are floating off the table to begin with. The fingers are pressed into the table to indicate value. Each finger (but not the thumb) of the right hand has a value of one. Press the index finger of the right hand onto the table to indicate "one." Press the index and middle fingers for “two”, the three leftmost fingers for “three”, and all four fingers of the right hand to indicate “four”. The thumb of the right hand holds the value “five”. To place the value “six”, press the right thumb and index finger onto the table. The thumb indicates “five” plus the “one” indicated by the finger. The left hand represents the tens digit. It works like the right hand, but each value is multiplied by ten. Each finger on the left hand represents “ten”, and the left thumb represents “fifty”. In this way, all values between zero and ninety-nine can be indicated on two hands.

It seem that it so hard and it will take a long time to learn it. Actually, it is not that hard, even at age  you just need to understand basics, practice, and use it. And you will be able to solve math problems with your hands, so fast.

What's more amazing, is that this effective technique can be used by anyone. The mental abacus does not depend on the language system. While most others need to represent numbers with verbal names, mental abacus appears to be entirely a visual task, without the use of a calculator, pencil and paper.


Here is a tutorial for chisanbop and here is the video tutorial, in case if you want to try if it works, or if you want to learn and practice. Try it, from my experience it's easy and fun.

Finger-Counting In Different Cultures

Good time to you my guest,
I want to share with a couple odd facts of the cultural differences in gestures, that you might never seen, thought, or heard about. Another day, when I talked to my classmates, I found out that some countries use totally unlike system of finger counting, then the most countries use. The fact shocked me because I had never payed attention to this matter. But when I stared actually thinking about it, I came up with a question that I wanted to find out the answer — Do we really think and show numbers differently, depending on our cultural background, or it's depending on the mentality of individuals?


But first of all, here are two quick and simple cultural tests that may indicate from what part of the earth you are.


Test #1 - From the book Dimensions of Body Language 
1. Hold up your main hand to display the number five - do it now.
2. Change it to the number two.
If you're Anglo-Saxon, there's a 96% chance you'll be holding up your middle and index fingers. 
If you're European, there's a 94% chance you'll be holding up thumb and index finger.

This is really interesting test, but, theoretically, those statistics above, that I borrowed from the book Dimensions of Body Language (Cultural Variations In Body Language, Cultural test) are statistical fallacy, more specifically they are misuse of statistics. They are not proper, because they used two groups that are not in the same categories and they are broad. First, “Anglo-Saxon” is a category that states about language, witch is English speakers. And “European”  is a category that states about the region, where European people live or it indicates that they were born in Europe. Secondly, how about others? There are a lot of countries that use almost the same finger counting but they didn’t include them. Additionally, there were no words that saying how they calculated those chances or where they took them. So, I going to tell you my point of view that is more specific, share with my experience, and with information that I found from the primary sources (interviews).

The reason for adding the statistics from the book, is not only to show that they are misuse of statistics, but to point out that they are almost right. I've done many short interviews with people, face to face, and I found out that most people from China, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia,Vietnam, Russia, India, Iraq, Turkey, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Congo, Morocco, United States, Mexico showed number "two" in the same way, and it is a big chance that all other people from other countries would show index and middle fingers. But, people that are from Poland, France, Germany, Italy showed index finger and thumb. So, what is going on? why people from Europe show thumb and index fingers instead of index and middle fingers as the rest countries do? Indeed, the way how people show the number "two" is not universal. It is seems more logical to show number "two" as European, because if you will place your hand in front of you (palm up) you will see that your thumb is out, and it's should consider as number "one" and index fInger as the follower shold be number "two". However, it seems more comfortable to show number "two" as most of the people do, because that is how our physical body structured; thumbs are shorter than the rest of the fingers and when you what to show numbers one (index), two (middle), three (ring), four (pinky) you probably using your thumb as a holder for the fingers to desplay a certain number.

Test #2 - From the Guardian blog post.
1. Now, without thinking about it too much, use your hands to count to 10.

(a) - the chance that you are probably from Europe;
(b) - the chance that you are probably from North America;
(c) - the chance that you are probably from Middle East

How did you do it? Did you start with the left hand, or the right? Did you begin counting on a thumb, or with a pinkie? Maybe you started on an index finger? And did you begin with a closed fist, or an open hand?

If you're European, there's a good chance you started with closed fists, and began counting on the thumb of the left hand. If you're from the Middle East, you probably also started with a closed fist, but began counting with the little finger of the right hand.

Most Chinese people, and many North Americans, also use the closed-fist system, but begin counting on an index finger, rather than the thumb. The Japanese typically start from an open-hand positions, counting by closing first the little finger, and then the remaining digits. 

Finger counting looks like a natural thing for any country – but it turned out that there are so many different techniques, and they are culturally transmitted.

I want to make a small but valuable correction and clarification, for the information above. All of those facts are real, but by my observation, those facts are not on 100% work in some cases. I asked people to do the same test, and people that were born in U.S. and from Chinese started the count with their index fingers. People that were from Middle East( Turkey, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq) mostly started with their little fingers. But, the last sentence, about Japanese way of counting is not certain. I've took the interviews with more that 15 people from Japan and they all didn't start with little finger. All of them started with open-hand position and closing the thumb first, but more then a half of them used only one hand to count 1 to 10.
The video below, about Japanese way of counting, will make more sense.

The most of the human beings had five fingers to each hand, so it only seems logical to start counting with the finger at one extremity of the hand or the other, in other terms either with the thumb or with the little finger. But some counties do start with the forefinger or even use other ways to show numbers.

The start with the thumb is the common way that most Western Europeans (such as Germany, Poland, Italy, and the French) count with their fingers, and it also extends to how they order drinks, according to a 2009 study from the University of Alberta-Augustana.
Interviewer story:  "I have learned this funny and odd way, during my visit in Oktoberfest festival (a traditional autumn festival held in Munich, Germany, every October that features beer-drinking and merrymaking). I was with my two closes people, and we decided to go to a beer place. When we got there, there was crowded, so I ordered 3 beers by showing 3 fingers; index, middle and ring finger. Waitress couldn't see that my thumb is folded so she brought 4 beers for us."
                                                                                                    —Aeldra Jones, (born in U.S.)
So, if you were to hold up an index and middle fingers in Western Europe to represent two, they might misunderstand and think you actually meant three. Though, you probably wouldn't be murdered like the American spy in "Inglorious Basters." If you saw the movie, a key scene revolved around an undercover allied soldier giving himself away in a German tavern by holding the wrong 3 fingers up when ordering a round of beers, because Germans count on their hands differently from Brits.

Film Inglorious Bastards 
"Three beers"

Anglo-Saxon countries (such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom) typically count with the index finger as the first digit and end with the thumb to represent five.

Still, for me, starting with the index finger makes no sense at all, but most people do it, and not only Anglo-Saxons countries.

Chinese's Finger-Counting

People from China also start counting with index fingers. But, the usual finger counting system that most people use unlike to the Chinese finger counting, because they uses symbolic gestures to represent any number higher than five. Such symbolic gestures need to be learned, and people from China learning those symbols from young age, and then it passes trough the generation to generations. This is mean that Chinese people think and show number differently based on their cultural background.

So, people count differently...what's the big deal?

The deal is that, there is a mental link between hands and numbers, and that link does come from environment that we are living in. Some of us are more comfortable to start counting with thumb, pinky, or with index fingers, but it took roots from our childhood. We learn small things in childhood, and our brains catch the information that we see in the environment that we are living in, and it build the mentality. We learn from teachers, parents, sibling, media, and from people that around us, and we start to act in the same way as we saw how to do it.

Overall, the gist of the article is that, knowing that there is a link between hands and numbers, and that how we process numbers mentally is influenced by how we finger-count, although it may seem automatic and natural to count in a certain manner, but it is actually a complex action that is learned and passed down within a culture.

Special thanks to all people that helped me to gain information. 

References:

* Burns, Corrinne. "What Does the Way You Count on Your Fingers Say about Your Brain? | Corrinne Burns." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 26 June 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2016. <https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/jun/26/count-fingers-brain>.
*  The book "Dimensions of Body Language" <http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html>

Body Language & Gestures - Greetings In Different Cultures

The first thing that we do, in any cultures, when we meet a person we saying something and use some kind of gestures to be polite to an interlocutor, but as you probably know that every culture uses greetings differently. In America, we have the standard greeting: “Hello, my name is...” with a handshake. However, there are other greetings out there of which you should be aware because you may find yourself in an embarrassing situation or in confusion. I did the research on different greetings of the world, and I want to share with a couple of the most stand out, greetings of the world, that I've never seen.

Greeting in Tibet
As a child, I was taught that to stick out the tongue is the mark of disrespect, and I should not do it because it is impolite, and in the most Western countries people think in the same way. However, in Tibet, to stick out the tongue means an opposite meaning.
The greeting "sticking out the tongue", took roots from the 9th century. Tibetan king, Langdarma, known for the "anti-Buddhist and a follower of  Bon", had a black tongue because of some sort of disease, but as the legend has said that his tongue turned black in order to mark him as the villainous man that he was. As Buddhists, Tibetans believe in reincarnation, and they feared that this mean king would be reincarnated. Consequently, for centuries Tibetans have greeted one another by sticking out their tongues demonstrating that they do not have black tongues, and that they are not incarnations of the villainous king.

It turned out that the Tibetans do not extend their tongues as far out or for so long time as it is shown in the film Seven Years In Tibet. They would never extend their tongues as a group, either. "The interview excerpts dealing with the depiction of Tibetans sticking out their tongues in Seven Years In Tibet are exemplary of individual reactions of Tibetans to constructed images of themselves. Offense is taken by those recognizing the falsity of the constructions"(The American Occupation of Tibetan Buddhism, by Eve Mullen, page. 115). Ergo, it appears that Hollywood exaggerated a little bit. And this is one of the written proofs that I found, which portrays the fallacy of cultural custom. And by looking at those made up or exaggerated stereotypes, can change the understanding for other cultures that don't know the truth.
Nowadays, when Tibetans meet, they briefly extend their tongues as a greeting. The greeting sticking out one's tongue is used to show agreement, and over the past few years, this gesture has evolved into a sign of respect, friendliness, and positive intention.. So, if you will go to Tibet or you know that you are going to meet a person from Tibet, and they would stick out their tongues to you, don't think that they are impolite people. Now, you know the story, and you can show them your respect in their way; unless, you are comfortable to do it, and if you didn't eat the black dyeing candy ;)
Additionally, in Tibet, "to stick out the tongue" is not the only greeting, it just the most strangest greeting for Western countries, and here is more information about their society and customs.

Greetings In Saudi Arabia & Middle East

In Saudi Arabia, as in other Middle Eastern countries, people always use greeting gestures depending on the person with who they greeting with. Often they greet each other with a right handshake only ( the left hand is considered unclean) and the words "As-salamu alaykum" will be spoken. Men may follow this with different amount of cheek-kisses depending on how well they know each other or what are their relations. Or they may follow, after handshake and "As-salamu alaykum", with rubbing their noses.
"Noses kisses" is a tribal custom, mostly practiced by Arabs in the Gulf region. First of all of the explanations of why they doing it and what does it mean, I want to point out that in Arabs understanding those gestures are not consider to the signs of homosexual intentions. However, in the Western countries people would mostly assume that those stereotypical signs are the intention to the homosexuality. Although, It just the different understanding of the cultural customs. So, I found out that the nose has a valuable symbol for the Arabs because it is in the center of the face, and it represents the values of respect and pride.

Well, you would ask, what about women?
When a Western man is introduced to an Arab woman it is the woman's choice whether to shake hands or not; she must initiate the handshake. Women shake hands only using their fingertips. Do not touch their palm and do not kiss her hand. Women do not kiss a man’s cheek in greeting, it is considered immodest. The also practice "nose kisses" but it’s mostly done in private among family members.
Note that hand shake, cheek kissing, and nose rubbing between men and women are usually considered inappropriate in the Arab world, unless with the same family e.g. brothers and sisters.
Additionally, if an Arab does not touch someone he greets, he either does not like him or is restraining himself because he perceives the person is accustomed to being touched.
Be aware, failure to shake hands when meeting someone or saying goodbye is considered rude.

References

* "Body Language in Different Cultures." Stuff for Success Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016. <http://www.samdiener.com/2009/10/body-language-in-different-cultures/>.
* Michael, By Leigh. "Top of the Morning From the Tip of My Tongue." Top Of The Morning From The Tip Of My Tongue. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2016. <https://mangosalute.com/magazine/top-of-the-morning-from-the-tip-of-my-tongue>.
* Roba, By. "The Guide to the Ultimate Arab Greeting: Cheek Kissing." AndFarAway. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2016. <http://www.andfaraway.net/blog/2009/07/28/the-guide-to-the-ultimate-arab-greeting-cheek-kissing/>.
* @TheNationalUAE. "Ask Ali: Why Rubbing Noses Is More than Just a Custom | The National." N.p., 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 15 Oct. 2016. <http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/ask-ali-why-rubbing-noses-is-more-than-just-a-custom>.

Common Language

    In the modern world, we know about the existence of a plurality of languages, which are divided even in completely different language groups and subgroups. People for centuries can't understand each other, and thousands of people are struggling with the study of the languages of other countries. But we all have the common language - body language.

    We read people by using our eyes. Body language sends the messages, which people can read and communicate with each other through gestures, facial expressions, expressive movements. Body language is a kind of nonverbal communication. Since the most of the people from different countries can get information without saying a word, they can easily understand each other. For instance, the gestures "come here", "wait", "let's go", "be quiet", “I love you”, “I’m hungry”, and etc. can be understandable. For one thing, I am certain that when a person moves to another country, without knowledge of the foreign language, he/she would mostly communicate with people by using gestures or body language, and people around would mostly understand what he/she meant to say.

Also, if you are more attentive, then you will see that nonverbal communication can tell you about your interlocutor more than he says about himself in words. For instance, when a person feels insecure, he performs the various movements, such as biting nails or twisting the hair ends. Therefore, when those gestures are shown, it is necessary to support the person or ask what is the matter. Another message that could be seen is flirting gestures. When a person wants to attract the attention of the opposite sex, then he or she elevate the emotions and start to use body language strenuously. For example, women can twist a lock of hair on their fingers or correct makeup. When men dealing with ladies, they can do stuff such as brushing their hair back or adjust their clothes or anything that will make them stand out. Of course, all people flirt differently, but the gestures will appear anyway. So, pay attention to a person with whom you talk to and look for the gestures, facial expressions, and movements that sign the person’s intention.

     For the last of all, all people, all nations, have the body language that unites us. Every person can read the body language. The nonverbal communication is the powerful skill that can show the intentions of people or show the emotional feelings. So, pay attention to the body language of people that are around you, and you will understand them better.

Welcome, my guests!

This particular post is the set up for my future posts about "How On Earth Do People Understand Each Other?".
Basically, I'm going to write about how people understand each other by comparing and contrasting their common or different aspects of communication that can be clear or unclear in different regions of the world. I'm not going to discuss about obvious differences that you already know, I will try to surprise you with new information that make cultures common or different. You might wonder, why I choose that kind of topic? Well, the thing is that since I turned seven years old, I've traveled a lot in Europe, Asia, North, and Middle of America; so, those trips were pretty awesome experiences for me to see, understand, and to get to know people that are live in different environments. Right now, I live in U.S. and the most of my time life, I meet people, everyday, from other places of the earth, and I wonder — we are all the same, but not quite. Some of us have common & different understanding of gestures, body language, languages, cultures, stereotypes, emotions, ect.

BUT

Obviously to say that we are all human being and we have the ways to understand each other, but the fact is that sometimes people, especially from different cultures, don't really understand each other. We are all people and we are kind of look the same, but mentally we are totally dissimilar. Especially, it varies depending on the climate and the range of information, in which people are living in.
So, I would like to share with you and explore, how on earth do people understand each other in different ways that you might not know about!
P.S. If you have any questions or interesting facts or opinions, welcome to put everything in comment sections, and that includes all posts, not just this one ;) .
P.P.S. Everything that I'm going to post can be translated to your native language. Just change the language on the right side of the blog.