soroban

Updated: May 12, 2025

Here all the 'rikshas drew up and the girls alighted with Miss Campbell, who was a little red in the face but determined to overlook the annoyance of orders disregarded. The front of the store was screened from the street by dark blue cotton curtains behind which was a roofed platform carpeted with matting. Here sat a group of clerks, each with his soroban or adding machine at his side.

Katherine Stokes - The Motor Maids in Fair Japan

Then she gave them each a brand-new copy-book and a brand-new soroban. A soroban is a counting-machine. It is a frame with wires stretched across it and beads hung on the wires. The Twins felt very proud to have sorobans and copy-books. "Now trot along," the Mother said. The Twins knew the way. They marched down the street, feeling more grown up than they ever had felt in all their lives.

Lucy Fitch Perkins - The Japanese Twins

Thereafter, the Ashikaga fell, and their successor, Oda Nobunaga, made no attempt to re-open commerce with China, while his successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, planned the invasion of the Middle Kingdom, so that the sword was more in evidence than the soroban.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era