木村：「B社との交渉、うまくいきましたか」
佐藤：「それが大変なんですよ。担当者がソロバン高い人なので、こちらも余程良い条件を出さないとね」
Sorobandakai (Kanjoodakai)
Kimura: B sha to no kooshoo, umaku iki mashita ka.
Sato: Sore ga taihen nan desu yo. Tantoosha ga sorobandakai hito na node, kochira mo yohodo yoi jooken wo dasanai to ne.
Kimura: Did everything go all right in your negotiations with Company B?
Sato: Are you kidding? The person in charge is so calculating, unless we provide some really good conditions (the deal will never come through.)
* * *
To be sorobandakai is to be calculating, scheming, crafy, and self-seeking, to consult one's own interests first, to think only of profits.
With electronic calculators now so inexpensive, the abacus (soroban) has all but disappeared from use. Twenty years ago, on the other hand, one didn't have to walk for to see an advertisement for "Abacus Classes." Indeed, people were expected to be able to use one and usually started learning how to use one in elementary school. There were even contests in which children vied to see who could calculate the fastest. It is out of this cultural background, then, that expres- sion sorobandakai has emerged. Along with the decline in abacus use, however, people today may be more apt to say keisandakai instead of sorobandakai.
In the dialog, sorobandakai functions as an adjective modifying "person. " Some other examples of this adjectival use: sorobandakai kaisha (a crafty sort of company) or kono kaisha wa soroban takai (this company is crafty) ; sorobandakai mise (a self-seeking store) or kono mise wa sorobandakai (this store is
self-seeking ).
A: Kono mise wa zuibun soroban takakute, metta ni baagen shinaiso yo. (This store is really out to take you arm and leg. They probably never have sales.)
B: Sonna ni sorobandakai mise nara (If the store is always out to get you, why don't you just forget about buying and just look?)
The most common way to use this expression is to express a negative evaluation of a "person," as in, sorobandakai hito. Japanese feel people who always calculate whether doing something will be to their advantage or disadvantage are coarse and unrefined.
At Company A people are split into two factions, one which supports the president and another which supports the vice president. No one knows what will happen at the next stock-holders meeting.
A:I'm behind the president. He's always been very good to me.
B:The president has had it. He's sure to lose his job.
I'm for the vice president. If you're interested in getting promoted, you should get behind the vice president as well.
A:Kimi wa zuibun sorobandakai hito da ne (You certainly are the calculating type.) There's no way I can be like that.
B:Tatoe sorobandakai to iwaretemo shikata ga nai yo (Though you say I'm calculating, it can't be helped. )
"Sorobandakai" to iwarete yorokobu hito wa imasen (No one likes to be called "calculating.") But the real world is like that. Who would you be for, the president? The vice president?