What is the Chinese Math?

Frank Ho

Former BC certified math teacher

Founder of Ho Math Chess Learning Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada

www.homathchess.com

Is there such a thing called Chinese Math? What is it and what does it mean and how special
is it? I did not realize how Chinese elementary teaching methods are different from Canada or
the USA until I had read some Chinese math books and compared them with math books
published in North America. I have found that Chinese elementary math teaching methods
are different because of their culture, heritage, and traditions especially their math contest
books.

What is the Chinese Math?

Chinese math is the elementary math teaching or learning methods which are unique to
Chinese because of their culture, language, history, and traditions.

Some of these areas such as culture and language differences have been mentioned in
literature when educators conducted researches in comparing international studies but not all
factors have been investigated. This article was written based on my own teaching
experience, research, and observations.

I will point out some unique ways of how Chinese students learn math because of their
background, heritage, and learning environment. These unique ways of learning and teaching
math constitute what Chinese Math is.

Times Table (九九乘法表)

The first drastic leaning difference is Chinese parents not only do not object their children to
memorize Times Table, but encourage very much by learning them in the summer vacation
before the school starts. In my own Ho Math Chess Learning Centre, I witnessed how some
Chinese Canadian parents have told their own children to "just" memorize the Times Tables.

My own mom asked me to memorize the Times Tables in the summer before I entered grade
3 when I was educated in Taiwan. Now the Times Table is being taught at grade 2 in Taiwan,
one grade earlier than I had to learn. I taught my own kids to memorize Times Tables in about
2 weeks of the time period and from that point on they never struggled with multiplications or
divisions.

From many western math educators' points of view, this method of memorizing Times Table
is just rote learning and would be objected vigorously.
Many Chinese parents realize the importance of learning by concepts but why they are so
agreeable to just recite the Times Tables? This phenomenon puzzled me a lot. I started to
pay attention to why this was happening to Chinese people. After my research and study, I
feel when some western math educators start to comment on the Chinese way of memorizing
Times Table, they may think twice after reading this article.

First we talk about the Chinese language and the place values. The following article can
provide some details.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-language-for-math-1410304008

The above article did not point out the pronunciation of each digit in Chinese. Each digit is just
one sound in Chinese. The writing of products in Times Table has a pattern so they rhyme
and the pattern of results makes Chinese students feel much easier to memorize than English
speaking children. I remembered when I started to learned English at age 12; I had to pay
special attention to numbers 11, 12 because they do not end in "teen" like others.

My own children had exhibited no troubles when they memorized the Times Table but in my
own teaching I have seen many students who just could not memorize them. My own children
memorized Times Table in English but many Chinese ESL students memorized them in
Chinese.

The following videos show reciting the Times Table in Chinese Mandarin. Notice each digit is
pounced with only one sound so the memorization may be "easier" for Chinese speaking
people. This could be also the reason Chinese math teaching stresses mental or oral
calculation other than handing calculations using pencil and paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOA-ubpSJps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxnqaWXMocs

Chinese have encouraged their kids to memorize the Times Tables for many thousands of
years and pass on this idea from generation to generation, there is even a phrase " Who
cares if 3 × 7 is 21" commonly used in daily Chinese spoken language to emphasize "It does
not matter". Most educated Chinese adults could recite Times Table fluently without hesitation.

There is archaeological evidence discovered in China on the ancient Chinese times tables,
which was carved on bamboo some 2000 years ago (秦代). Watch this Chinese video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otu7ogZrQyE.

I also observed that some Chinese Canadian students who learned Times Table in their
mother tongues (Mandarin or Cantonese) then later when they became teenagers, they could
speak English more fluently than their mother tongues, but when comes to multiplication they
still feel "easier" to use their mother tongues to do calculation is faster than English. This
effect of "imprinting" also experienced by me because I feel that I could do calculations
especially mental math faster in my mother tongue.
There is an article talking about how mother tongue may determine math skills and more
details could be found at the following site:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9422-mother-tongue-may-determine-maths-
skills.html#.VJ93UCcBg

The "imprint" effect is not mentioned in the above article.

The Chinese way of expressing place values shows simplicity not only in the whole number
but also in decimal place values.

My feeling towards memorizing Times Table for Chinese is not to draw a conclusion to say
that to learn math in English is inherited at disadvantage, rather to understand why Chinese
parents have no objections in encouraging their children to memorize Times Table and there
are some reasons of doing it under the condition that it does not mean that they are
advocating rote learning.

Model Word Problems (四则运算)

Some word problems appear in the math contests in North America now had appeared in
some Chinese math books a few thousands of years ago and one of the most famous one is
called the "Chickens and Rabbits" problem in China and almost all educated Chinese adults
heard of it. More details on Chickens and Rabbits excerpted from one of our math contest
books are shown in Appendix A.

There are many other Model word problems named in Chinese math contest books such as
Sum and Difference, Sum and Multiple etc. When mastering these skills students could
transfer the math skills learned to other math contest problems. This is much like to learn
some typical chess openings and then transfer this knowledge to other chess openings.
When I trained my son to play in chess tournaments I often asked him to transfer the game
opening which his opponent was playing to something he is familiar with. In our math contest
books, we also train our students to use this method

The following word problem is disguised as an age problem but in fact it really is just a Sum
and Difference Model word problem. Chinese's special way of training students to be familiar
with the Model problem can be learned by us.

For example, the following appears like an age problem but in fact it is just a typical Sum and
Difference problem.

Kiko and Snow are two cats. Kiko and Snow are 24 years old altogether. Five
years ago their age difference was 6 years and Snow was older than Kiko. How old was each
five years ago?

Answer: Snow was 10 years old and Kiko was 4 years old.
The following is an example of the fraction but again it uses the idea of Sum and Difference to
solve it.

In the picture, Snow is the white cat and he is much larger than Kiko the Siamese cat so Kiko
was pushed all the back in the basket and her head dropped down on the table because there
was no room for her in the basket.

Kiko is a female cat and Snow is a male cat. Kiko really enjoys eating and at every meal time
Snow even gives up his share for Kiko to eat his share if she wants to. Today Kiko and Snow
2
shared a can of Chicken and Salmon Dinner weighing 70 g. Kiko ate 5 more than Snow. How
many grams did Kiko eat and how many grams did Snow eat?

Answer: Kiko ate 49 grams and Snow ate 21 grams

Math Terminology

Many Chinese math terminologies have meanings implied between characters and this often
is not the case in English math terminologies. For example to add fractions with different
denominators then students must change all denominators to the same LCD, so to express
the idea after teaching the concept a long English phrase is still needed to tell students on
what to do but in Chinese it is just a short phrase of 通分 and its meaning is very clear on
what to do for Chinese students. What is LCD, LCM, or GCF? Many times I had to remind
elementary students on their meanings because they forgot, but for Chinese students if these
English acronyms are written in Chinese characters, then their meanings are self-explanatory.
For example, GCF in Chinese is written as 最大公约数 so form the wording (5 characters) it
already says what it means. Due to the language barrier, this language advantage in Chinese
was never mentioned in English spoken researchers' research papers as far as I know.

Line Segment Diagram (线段图)

Canadian math teachers offer many strategies on how to solve word problems, but do not
offer a universal method to solve many word problems especially working backward fraction
problems so we normally do not see this type of problems appear in Canadian math
textbooks. Chinese students use the Line Segment Diagram method as a universal way of
solving word problems before using algebra. In Singapore, the Line Segment Diagram
method is called the Bar Chart method. I wonder why Canadian researchers have not picked
up on this obviously different way of teaching how to solve word problems for elementary
students?

In one of my math contests book, I used examples to show it has advantages for elementary
students to use arithmetic instead of algebra to solve word problems to develop their logic
and critical thinking skills. I also showed, surprisingly, some problems are much easier to get
answers by using arithmetic than using algebra. So it is not a good idea to teach elementary
students too early to use algebra to solve word problems even though algebra is a powerful
and universal method.

Chinese character itself teaches math

Many Chinese characters are themselves created in symmetry and also many of these
characters have embedded and implied meanings in a symbolic way when reading them. So
for fun, I have created many math and Chinese integrated word problems that require
students to know some Chinese characters and basic math. Readers can view this Chinese
and math integrated word problems from the following site:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/251151886/Ho-Chinese-and-Math
Appendix A

Chickens and Rabbits Model Problem

鸡兔同笼
Introduction

Recently a grade 7 girl (in Canada, British Columbia) asked me how to solve a “Chickens and
Rabbits” (2 unknown variables with power of 1 each) like question and when I started to
introduce a systematic method to her, she lost interest and insisted that her teacher only
taught the “trial and error” method. There is nothing wrong with the trial and error method
especially if this is just a homework exercise, but I must teach students who are interested in
math contests a universal method to get the advantage of speed.

As my elementary math education was educated in Chinese so I know the Chickens and
Rabbits problems were taught to Chinese not in trial and error method. So this sparked my
interest in exploring how the Chickens and Rabbits are taught in China and Canada and at
what grades and why Chinese were so interested in this kind of word problem around the 4th
century? What is the implication by learning a universal method of solving the Chickens and
Rabbits problems? I attempt to find some answers to the following questions.

1. Chicken and Rabbits problem is a classic 2-variable problem so how can Chinese give
this kind of problems in grade1 enrichment math books? What method do they teach
such young kids?
2. The concept of systems of equations method was not used in solving the Chickens and
Rabbits problem in 4th century China, so what method did they use?
3. Can the method of solving Chickens and Rabbits be used as a universal method to
solve other 2-variable word problems by mastering the method of Chickens and
Rabbits problems without using algebra?
4. Is the method used in 4th China different from the method of systems of equations used
in modern math?

The following will attempt to address all the above problems.

Chickens and Rabbits word problem was first mentioned in a Chinese mathematics book
entitled 孙子算经. This mathematics book was published in the 4th century but the exactly
published year is not sure. In that book, there is a math problem as follows:

“今有鸡兔同笼，上有三十五头，下有九十四足，问鸡兔各几何？”用现代话说就是这样：
“今有鸡兔同笼，从上面数有头 35 个，从下面数有脚 94 只，问鸡和免各有多少只？”

The above problem is a very classic and famous Chickens and Rabbits word problem. The
problem is a very good example of 2 variables question which can be handled by using
arithmetic. It also can be used to solve other arithmetic problems which are two variables in
nature. Thus students are encouraged to be familiar with “Chickens and Rabbits” problems to
use it as a general method to solve a variety of two variable problems.

We will present the methods of solving it in 4 methods.