On January 5, 2025, the annual New Year's "Abacus Calculation Day" was held at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine (Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto City), known as the shrine to the god of learning. Children enthusiastically calculated the size of a giant abacus, hoping for improvement.
The event has been held for over 30 years by Kitano Tenmangu Shrine and a support group made up of abacus instructors. 154 elementary and junior high school students, mostly from Kyoto City, participated.
After praying at the main shrine, the children went to the votive tablet booth to try their hand at a 5.5-meter-long abacus with 2,000 beads and 400 digits. They calculated the answer with serious expressions and enthusiastically reported the correct answer. They also tried their hand at "flash mental arithmetic," adding up numbers that were displayed on a screen one after another.
