Need Lucky NuMbErS in Business?Know more about Lucky NuMbErS
One member in the other online magazine I am writing at, has asked why number 9 is a lucky number. So I have thought of sourcing quickly about lucky numbers and not so lucky numbers.
May it be for business purposes, construction, banking, romance, and other social aspects Chinese would normally attribute lucky numbers on their judgment and choice.
I have put reference on the Chinese culture reference considering it is one of the earliest civilizations that are rich in culture that would explain relevance of numbers in superstitious way and relate it to their everyday life.
Lucky numbers are based on Chinese words that sound similar to other Chinese words. The numbers 6, 8, and 9 are believed to have auspicious meanings because their names sound similar to words that have positive meanings.
Two
The number 2 (二, Pinyin: èr or liăng) is a good number in Chinese culture. There is a Chinese saying “good things come in pairs”. It is common to use double symbols in product brandnames, e.g. double happiness, double coin, double elephants etc. In Cantonese, two (jyutping: yi6) is a homophone of the character for “easy” (易).
Three
The number 3 (三, Pinyin: sān, jyutping: saam1) sounds similar to the character for “birth” (生, Pinyin: shēng, jyutping: saang1), and is thus considered a lucky number.
Five
The number 5 (五, Pinyin: wŭ) is associated with the five elements (water, wood, fire, earth and metal) in Chinese philosophy, and in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five arches. It is also referred to as “I” as the pronunciations of “I” (吾, Pinyin: wŭ) and 5 sound similar in Mandarin.
Six
The number 6 (六, Pinyin: liù) in Mandarin is pronounced the same as “sleek” (澑, Pinyin: liù) and “fluid” (流, Pinyin: liú) and is therefore considered good for business. The number 6 also represents happiness. In Cantonese, this number is a homophone for blessings (祿 Lok）
Seven
The number 7 (七, Pinyin: qī) symbolizes “togetherness”. It is a lucky number for relationships. It is also recognized as the luckiest number in the West, and is one of the rare numbers that is great in both Chinese and many Western cultures. It is a lucky number in Chinese culture, because it sounds alike to the Chinese character 起 (Pinyin: qi3) meaning arise.
Eight
The word for “eight” (八 Pinyin: bā) sounds similar to the word which means “prosper” or “wealth” (发 – short for “发财”, Pinyin: fā). In regional dialects the words for “eight” and “fortune” are also similar, eg Cantonese “baat3″ and “faat3″.
There is also a visual resemblance between two digits, “88″, and 囍, the “shuāng xĭ” (’double joy’), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 (”xĭ” meaning ‘joy’ or ‘happiness’).
A telephone number with all digits being eights was sold for USD0,723 in Chengdu, China.
The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing began on 8/8/08 at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm (local time)[1]
The Horseshoe Casino, in Hammond, Indiana, USA, also chose 08/08/08 as the opening date for its new facility.
A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million (roughly 4,000 USD).
Dragon Fish Industry in Singapore, a breeder of rare Asian Arowanas (which are “lucky fish” themselves, and, being a rare species, are required to be microchipped), makes sure to use numbers with plenty of eights in their microchip tag numbers, and appears to reserve particular numbers especially rich in eights and sixes (e.g. 702088880006688) for particularly valuable specimens.[2][3]
The value of eight could also be linked with buddhism and the meaning of Lotus flower (eight petals)
As part of grand opening promotions, a Commerce Bank branch in New York’s Chinatown raffled off safety deposit box # 888.
Nine
The number 9 (九, Pinyin: jiŭ, jyutping: gau2), being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China; the Emperor’s robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.
Moreover, the number 9 is a homophone of the word for “longlasting” (久), and as such is often used in weddings.
FOUR
Number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese cultures because it is nearly homophonous to the word “death” (死 pinyin sǐ).
Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the “4″: e.g. Nokia cell phones (there is no series beginning with a 4), Palm[citation needed] PDAs, Canon PowerShot G’s series (after G3 goes G5), etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. (Compare with the American practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.) In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings miss ALL floor numbers with “4″, e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40-49 floors. As a result, a building whose highest floor is number 50 may actually have only 36 physical floors.
In Singapore during the early 2000s, Alfa Romeo introduced a new model, the 144. Nobody bought it, so they had to change the model number.[citation needed]
Number 14 is considered to be one of the unluckiest numbers in Chinese culture. Although 14 is usually said as 十四 “shí sì,” which sounds like 十死 “ten die”, it can also be said as 一四 “yī sì” or 么四 “yāo sì”, literally “one four”. Thus, 14 can also be said as “yāo sì,” literally “one four,” but it also sounds like “want to die” (要死 pinyin yào sǐ). In Cantonese, 14 sounds like “sap6 sei3″, which sounds like “sat6 sei2″ meaning “certainly die” (實死).
Ironically, in the Rich Text Format specification, language code 4 is for the Chinese language.
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