Chinese airline hopes eight eights are enough

[tonado]

Chinese airline hopes eight eights are enough

By Associated Press, 8/19/2003

 

SHANGHAI, China -- An airline in southwestern China has paid a small fortune to nail down as many lucky eights as possible.

 

Sichuan Airlines has forked over $282,000 for the phone number "88888888," saying it hopes to make its customers happy.

 

Many Chinese consider the number 8 to be lucky because it rhymes with the Chinese word for getting rich.

 

"Everyone at the company believes the number was worth the price we paid," said Xing Bing, of Sichuan Airlines' corporate culture department.

 

Xing said the number, to be used as a customer-service hotline, had already had a "good advertising effect."

 

The auction was officially sanctioned, with proceeds to go to charity.

 

"The number is easy to remember," Xing said. "It's a number that will make customers happy when they call."

 

© Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Mick]

When I lived in Miami, we had a taxi company there that had the phone number 888-8888. Makes me wonder if the company was owned by Chinese.

[TimD]

I can just imagine Chinese Taxi drivers in the US....makes me laugh thinking of these poor drivers being restrained to one single lane

[Bryan_Qunying]

What about having to actually stop at a Light when it's RED or wait for pedestrians to cross the road?

 

You haven't had a ride in a taxi until you ride in one in China.

 

 

Bryan

[sarah36]

Yes, number is condidered very important to decide luck in China. Like your house's number on the street or the floor's number where you live, nobody wants to choose the number ended with "4" because it rhymes the same as "death". When in big ceremony or festivals, people choose things in double number except 4. It may seem a little bit superstitious to some people.But according to the Chinese traditional culture"Feng Shui", the number or the position of furnitures can decide people's luck. I'm not an expert on it and I'm not very interested in it, but I think there is some saying convincible and also if possible to let some numbers make people feel good should not be a bad thing.

 

 

Sarah