Lee Jeonghee (; born 23 February 1963) is a South Korean abacus master. She is the only known

soroban The is an abacus developed in Japan. It is derived from the History of Science and Technology in China, ancient Chinese suanpan, imported to Japan in the 14th century. Like the suanpan, the soroban is still used today, despite the proliferation ...

abacus master to have reached the eleventh

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. She is also known as Abacus Master (주산왕) in South Korea.

Biography

Lee began training with the

abacus in fifth grade. In her first year of high school, she obtained the 11th dan. In 2007, Lee opened up an abacus training academy in Korea, where she has taught thousands of students, some of whom travel to the country solely to participate. In 2001, Lee represented

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

in the 20th International Abacus Competition and finished in first place in the singles category. In 2008, Lee appeared on the South Korean television program

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with a group of children ages seven to nine, whom she had taught for a 100-day period. Her students, selected for the program after their parents described them as distracted and underachieving in school, displayed significant improvement in mental calculation skills, as well as in focus and attention. By the end of the program, almost all of the students were able to mentally solve an addition problem of fifteen 5-digit numbers in under thirty seconds. In 2013, Lee appeared on the South Korean television program Miracle Korea. During the episode, she demonstrated her ability to do Flash Anzan, adding together a total of fifty 4-digit numbers individually flashed on a screen for less than one second each, while simultaneously being interviewed by the hosts. During the same episode, she mentally added fifty 25-digit numbers in 94 seconds. In 2016, Lee competed in the

Mental Calculation World Cup The Mental Calculation World Cup (German: Weltmeisterschaften im Kopfrechnen, or World Championship in Mental Calculation) is an international competition for mental calculators, held every two years in Germany. Mental Calculation World Cup 2004 Th ...

. The Mental Calculation World Cup 2016 was held from 23–25 September 2016, in

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Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

where 31

mental calculator Human calculator is a term to describe a person with a prodigious ability in some area of mental calculation (such as adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing large numbers). The world's best mental calculators are invited every two yea ...

s from 16

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participated. She won in multiplying two 8-digit numbers and was recognized as the Most Versatile Calculator (having the best score for solving another 5 unknown "surprise tasks"). She placed 3rd in the overall competition (a combination of all 10 categories). In November 2016, Lee dominated the mental calculation events at the Memoriad competition in

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, winning the gold medal in the categories multiplication, addition, division and flash anzan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Jeonghee 1963 births Living people Abacus South Korean educators