Finger Systems

Finger systems --- Signing --- Days in a month --- Chisenbop --- Multiplication --- Up to 100,000

Chisenbop counting

This is also known as Chismbop or Chisanbop. It is a way of counting using your fingers which goes up to nearly a hundred, rather than ten. It is said to come from Korea. You use the fingers of one hand to represent the units, and the other hand's fingers represent the tens. Of course, you only have five fingers on one hand, so the thumb acts as a five (or as a fifty on the other hand). In fact, it works very like an Eastern abacus.

Start by holding your hands out, palm down, thumbs towards each other, above a table or even your knee, rather as if you were going to play the piano of use a keyboard. Then for each number, tap a finger downwards. Click on 'Step count' to see the numbers, or enter a number (less than a hundred). 'Count' will run through the numbers for you. The fingers look rather strange, as they are pointing directly towards you to start with.

Chisenbop counting is not the most efficient way to count using your fingers. If you count in Binary, with finger up as zero and finger down as one, you can count up to 1023. But when I try to do it, my fingers start to hurt. So does my brain!