Chinese Lucky Numbers
In China, six, eight and nine are considered lucky numbers, since their homophones have auspicious meanings. Six, pronounced 'Liu' in Chinese, implies that everything about you will go smoothly. Eight was originally deemed auspicious by the Cantonese, since in Cantonese, eight reads as 'Fa', which means to make a great fortune in the near future. Later, the auspiciousness of eight was taken up by all Chinese. The letter nine, pronounced as 'Jiu', implies everlasting, especially in friendship and marriage. Thus, numbers ending with these three digits are firm favourites, for example, when it comes to choosing phone numbers, car license tags and room numbers. Four and seven are unlucky numbers people will avoid since the former implies death and the latter means gone.
Many Chinese believe in lucky numbers. Mostly base on the pronunciation of number itself. These numbers can be anything, day of the year, house or apartment numbers. Phone or license plate even serial numbers on money bills. This is way beyond the fact most of the price tags end with 98 or 88. Such number are not FengShui based but people just love them. Here are some examples:
168: a road of prosperity or be prosper together. Many areas in China, charged telephone service numbers starts with 168 (similar to 900 number in America but has nothing to do with sex), the company who provides the serve are definitely getting a road of prosperity when you call them.
- 289: Easy long-term prosperity, mostly in south east China and Hong Kong
- 5: me, myself
- 518: I will prosper
- 5189: I will prosper for a long time
- 516289: I will get on a long, smooth prosperous road
- 5918: I will soon prosper
- 6: easy and smooth
- 7: together
- 8: sudden fortune, prosperity
- 9: long in time
Some times not so attractive numbers can become attractive when form a phrase:
48: 4 sounds like 'death', when placed in front of the prosperous 8 becomes 'determined to prosper'. Not bad at all for a new year's resolution.
