Most Lucky and Unlucky Numbers for Chinese People

Hey, guys, welcome to Off the Great Wall. I'm here with Mia from Asian Beauty Secrets. Hey, Mia, do you like numbers? I kind of. Really? Yeah. How many? What's what am I holding up behind my back? Two. Wrong. It's I didn't have one ready. We're going to talk about numbers today. When we think of usernames or passwords, we always try to use numbers that have some sort of meaning to us. Like, for example, mine is always Danster 817. Can you guess what 817 is? 817 numbers play a huge role in lives of Chinese people, from which is like the best to get married, sometimes simple as a phone number or like the street name or the house number, whatever. So we always try to choose the luckiest number and stay away from the unlucky ones. All right. So zero or Ling is considered lucky because it is an even number and often associated with the money. Really? Wait, how do you associate? Yeah, zero. All right. I guess I guess I just don't know anything. Number two or two is a lucky number. And there's a popular saying in Chinese saying 好事成双 or good things come in pairs. So if you've ever been to a Chinese wedding, you'll see the symbol a lot. This word xi stands for happiness. And on wedding days, it's written like this, which is actually still pronounced the same, but written as a pair to symbolize the happiness of marriage. Three or san is a lucky number in Chinese because the Chinese believe that human life has three stages. Child, adult and elderly or birth, marriage and death. The number three, when said in Chinese, also sounds like birth or sheng. All right. The number six on its own is harmless enough. But when you put three of them together in the West, horrifying images will come to mind. But in China, six is actually extremely lucky number and more of them the better because six or liu in Chinese has the same sound as where that means flow or smooth. Chinese think that the number six is great for business, representing that fortune will flow in and the business will operate smoothly. The number eight is probably the granddaddy of all lucky numbers for Chinese people. The number eight is so prized that the phone number eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight was shown in Chengdu, China for a sum of two hundred seventy thousand dollars. The opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics was held on August 8th, 2008 at precisely eight minutes and eight seconds past 8 p.m. Oh, wow. That's crazy. That's obsessive. Now, why is this number so special? The number eight or fa in Mandarin sounds similar to the word fa or to become wealthy, fa cai. When you turn the number eight on its side, it's also the symbol for infinity. So infinite wealth. Number nine is commonly associated with the Chinese emperor as the number nine or jiu has the same sound as longevity. There are always nine dragons on the classic dragon wall paintings. And supposedly there are nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine rooms in the city. Now that we met the lucky numbers, let's take a look at which numbers are considered unlucky to Chinese people. Let's start with the worst of them. Four. Oh, my God. Yeah, this one is pretty self-explanatory. Four or si in Mandarin sounds similar to si or death. That one is pretty straightforward, right? You wouldn't want to get married in the month of death, would you? Or have a phone number that has a bunch of deaths in there like si, si, si, si, si. It's like, oh, what's their phone number? Wu or wu is also considered unlucky. Wu is the same sound as wu, meaning nothing, and could be understood as not having anything. The number seven is the luckiest number to most Westerners. But the Chinese, it is complicated. Seven or qi in Chinese can mean anger or also mean rise. July or the seventh month is the ghost month believed to be the month when spirits and demons are released from hell to visit the living. Ironically, Chinese Valentine's Day is also in that month. Go figure. The number 13 is unlucky everywhere, I guess. But to Chinese people, only because when you add the one and three, you get four. The number 14 is considered by some to be the worst number ever. One can be pronounced yi or yao, and yao with the number si, si, basically means yao si, or you must die or you have to die or you want to die. Oh, and that's all for today. So actually, I knew some of these things about these numbers. But what I didn't realize was that in China, like businesses, like your address, all were predicated on these numbers. Anyways, if you like this video, share with your friends. This is Mia. I'm Dan. Don't forget to check out Asian Beauty Secrets. Bye.