Please look carefully at this picture I took of the floor options in our building elevator. Anyone else wondering what happened to the 4, 13, and 14? The Chinese believe that 4 (si) is a very unlucky number because it is spelled the same as the word "death", the only difference is the tone one uses when pronouncing it. The numbers 13 and 14 are unlucky as well. The number 13 is unlucky because 1+3=4, while 14 is unlucky because in Mandarin it is similar to the pronunciation of "ten die", or "shi si". The number 14 can also be said as "yao si", literally 1-4. However, this pronunciation is similar to that of "want to die". Aren't you glad the English language doesn't rely on tones?On a more positive note, the number 8 is a very lucky number for the Chinese. Its pronunciation, "ba" is very similar to the pronunciation of the word prosperity, "fa".
Are the floors empty or do they believe that by skipping numbers that the floor directly above the third one is not the 4th????
ReplyDeleteGood question... no, the 4th floor is not empty, it just is not labeled as the 4th floor. After floor 3 is floor 5, which technically is still floor 4... By that logic, I guess we live on the luckiest floor... we are actually on the 8th level, not the 9th... And, the buildings do not have 20 floors, just 17...
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