Friday

8/8/08

5 Comments August 8, 2008 – 12:33 am | Share and Save | Permalink |  Print This Post |

It’s August 8, 2008. 8/8/08. Lucky day supposedly, even the Beijing Olympics was scheduled to start on this day, and mind you, at 8:08:08 PM. Karirin ba and lucky numbers? Hahaha! But sige na, kembot na lang. Here’s some Chinese trivia for you…

Lucky Numbers

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.

One

The number 1 can represent unity.

Two

The number 2 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. Cantonese speaking people like the number two because it sounds the same as the word “easy” in Cantonese.

Three

The number 3 (Pronounced saam in Cantonese) sounds like the word “sanng”, meaning “life”, and is thus considered a lucky number.

Four

Although the number 4 is considered unlucky by most Chinese, it is considered lucky in some regions of China where it is homonymous in the local dialect to the word “(job, business, or task)”.

4 also sounds like the word “(thinking)”. 4 in solfège sounds like “fa”, meaning “get fortune”; 14 in solfège sounds like “dou fa”, meaning “everyone gets fortunes”.

Five

The number 5 is associated with the Five elements (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.

Six

The number 6, pronounced “liu”, sounds like the word for “flowing”, “smooth” or “slippery” which can mean “everything goes smoothly”.

The number 666 can be seen prominently in many shop windows across the country, and people there often pay extra to get a mobile phone number including this string of digits. Coincidentally, that number is considered to be demonic in Western culture, as it is the Number of the Beast.

License plate number AW6666 was bought for 272,000 yuan (US$34,000) in an auction by an anonymous bidder on behalf of a motorcycle dealership in Zengcheng, Guangzhou.

Seven

The number 7 symbolizes “togetherness”. This is shown in the Chinese mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl. The seventh day of the seventh month is The Night of Sevens. However, the mythology of Cowherd and Weaver Girl is a tragedy, since they could only meet up with each other once every 1000 years, therefore 7 is often known as a sad, tragedic, and unlucky number in the northern Chinese tradition. Also, the 7th month of the year is known as the Ghost Month, and therefore 7 is often linked with fate, destiny, and supernatural occurrences.

Eight

The word for “eight” in Chinese (Pinyin: b?) sounds similar to the word which means “prosper” or “wealth”. In regional dialects the words for “eight” and “fortune” are also similar, eg Cantonese “baat” and “faat”.

There is also a resemblance between two digits, “88″, and the shuang xi (’double joy’), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters (xi, ‘joy’, ‘happiness’).

Telephone number 8888-8888 was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.

The Summer Olympics in Beijing are scheduled to open on 8/8/08 at 8:08:08 p.m.

A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for 1.12 million yuan.

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 particularly numbers especially rich in eights and sixes (e.g. 702088880006688) for particularly valuable specimens.[3][4]

Nine

The number 9, 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 (jiu) sounds like the word for “longlasting”, and as usch is often used in weddings.

Lucky Number Combinations

1314 - Forever, as the pronunciation of “1314″ is close to it in Mandarin.

138 or 148 - Prosperous for life; variations include 338 and 448 (Prosperous for every generation).

168 - Prosperous all the way, or to be prosperous together - many charged telephone service numbers in China begin with this number. Many businesses also prefer to have this number as part of their names. It is considered one of the luckiest numbers in Chinese culture.

518 - I will prosper (literally “prosperous without worries”); other variations include: 5189 (I will prosper for a long time), 516289 (I will get on a long, smooth prosperous road) and 5918 (I will soon prosper).

54 - in Cantonese: ‘ng sei’ sounds like ‘m sei’ - not die; in Mandarin, sounds like “I die”

524 - Cantonese, “Not easy to die”

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