The "evil" number 4

[m-coon]

Hi All,

I happily told my wife (who is coming here next week) that I bought her a new cell phone and told her what her number will be (so she can give it to family and friends). She quickly lost her smile! She told me that the number 4 was very evil and represented death to the Chinese people!!! Have any of you heard of this and if so please post your experience with your Chinese SO over this issue.

Scott

[Trigg]

four bad---eight good!!!! Ever notice how prices in the US end in 99?? Obviously because madison avenue has caught on that the typical American consumer thinks that 19,999.99 is much less than 20k. Next time in china note that most prices end in 8 or 88. Thats because it it lucky. fours are not!

 

This has to be correct cuzz wifey told me so!!!!

[Yuanyang]

Right. And if lao po says so then it is gospel!!

[david_dawei]

Four = si4 (~{KD~})

 

Death = si3 (~{K@~})

 

 

So the sound is very similar... change the number...

[tywy_99]

As David said, "4" sounds like "death" in Chinese. My wife has told me this before.

If I can remember correctly, she says that any number(s) ending in "4" is a bad omen. Any number(s) with "4" in the middle somewhere isn't so bad.

[tonado]

As David said, "4" sounds like "death" in Chinese. My wife has told me this before.

If I can remember correctly, she says that any number(s) ending in "4" is a bad omen. Any number(s) with "4" in the middle somewhere isn't so bad.

171036[/snapback]

54 and 94 are not bad numbers.

 

54 sounds like "not dead"

94 sounds like "long time before dead"

 

58 is a bad number - not able to get rich.

[msmckee]

I think 6's are reasonably lucky. 9's have something do do with love. a lot of the profiles I browsed before ended in 99 or 999. Then there were the ones that ended in 666. OMG! It may be different between Cantonese and Mandarin?

[tywy_99]

As David said, "4" sounds like "death" in Chinese. My wife has told me this before.

If I can remember correctly, she says that any number(s) ending in "4" is a bad omen. Any number(s) with "4" in the middle somewhere isn't so bad.

171036[/snapback]

54 and 94 are not bad numbers.

 

54 sounds like "not dead"

94 sounds like "long time before dead"

 

58 is a bad number - not able to get rich.

171039[/snapback]

Thanks Tony. I din't know that.

I was just trying to remember what my wife had said about the number four. It seems that maybe she has said that about some of the numbers you have up. I just remembered vaguely talking about it before.

[pkfops]

Confirmed by wife.

 

Four sounds like death (cantonese & mandarin).

Edited November 23, 2005 by pkfops (see edit history)

[mercator]

4 is bad. 6,8,9 are good. 6 is lucky, 8 is smoothness and 9 is love. If you go to a florist in China (I use Annies on advice of fellow CFL'ers) you will see they have unusual amounts of flowers available as gifts - to the western way of thinking - 9 roses, 99 roses, etc. very good.

[Feathers268]

Read that myself,

Never give gifts that total number 4, tea service set, China sets, etc. Jen had never mentioned it to me but learning about it made me nervous about what I shold bring for her and family when I went to visit for the first time.

[jim_julian]

They do go on about telephone numbers ...

 

Lao po had to change her mobile number while I was in China and we went to the phone store together. They gave us a big list of available phone numbers and she must have spent ten minutes studying it. When she got it down to 3 she asked me, "Which one is better?" to which I very intelligently said ... "Huh?"

 

[SheLikesME?]

Even in Japan it must be an unlucky number. SATO blamed his bad performance in Formula One racing on the fact he was #4 this past season, as I recall, and that was bad luck. Seems he really believed it.

[Jeikun]

Even in Japan it must be an unlucky number.  SATO blamed his bad performance in Formula One racing on the fact he was #4 this past season, as I recall, and that was bad luck.  Seems he really believed it.

171142[/snapback]

Yep. Japanese use their own numbers, but also Chinese numbers. Japanese word for death is "Shi" (derived from Chinese) & the "Japanized Chinese" number 4 is also "Shi"

[Jeikun]

Maybe you could explain that it is an American, English-speaking phone. So the number doesn't contain "Si", but rather "Four" - and "Four" sounds nothing like "Death" in English, so as long as she always gives the number in English that the bad juju won't fall from the sky. (Just make sure it doesn't also contain the number 13, or you'll be in trouble either way)