This year is the tenth year of China's successful application for abacus as a world heritage site. On the morning of July 2, the 2023 Nanjing Mental abacus ability contest was held in Jiangning District Qilin Central Primary School. 186 primary school students from 36 primary schools in the city competed on the spot for "the strongest brain". Among them, 51 students from 8 primary schools in Jiangning District participated, the largest number in the city.

This competition is divided into two groups: grades 4 to 6, grade 3, and below. The competition includes four items: addition and subtraction, multiplication, division, and listening to mental arithmetic. The first three items are conducted in a time limited and unlimited manner. Players are required to complete as many questions as possible within the 5-minute competition time of each item, not only to check the calculation speed, but also to check the accuracy of the calculation. Listening to mental arithmetic adopts the method of limited amount and unlimited time. The referee will report the questions uniformly, including Elementary arithmetic. Players should remember the results of mental arithmetic at each step to get the final accurate answer. At the competition site, the contestants were highly focused, racing against the clock to answer accurately. Within a limited time, they successfully solved over 100 arithmetic problems, showcasing the charm of the non abacus calculation culture.

"I think Mental abacus is very interesting." Wang Xinyan from Longhu Branch Primary School of Jinling Middle School has studied Mental abacus for 6 years, and gradually realized the charm of Mental abacus in the learning process.

"I think I played very well today." Chen Chih-yuan, a fourth grader of Kirin Center Primary School, has been learning Mental abacus since his first grade. Through continuous in-depth learning, he increasingly feels the help of Mental abacus in learning. "I will continue to learn Mental abacus in the future, and I want to be a small inheritor of abacus."

After fierce competition, two representative teams from Qilin Central Primary School won first prizes in two groups of competitions. As an excellent traditional culture in China, abacus has been listed in the United Nations "Representative List of Intangible cultural heritage of Humanity". The Mental abacus, which has been innovated and developed on the basis of abacus, is the best carrier of inheritance. In recent years, Jiangning District actively inherits and promotes abacus culture, and vigorously carries out Mental abacus education in primary schools in Jiangning District. Among them, Kirin Central Primary School has become China's Mental abacus education and teaching experimental school. The school's characteristic training of Mental abacus has persisted for more than 30 years, trained nearly 1000 players, participated in national, provincial and municipal competitions on behalf of Nanjing, and has repeatedly achieved excellent results.