Chinese Lucky Numbers - Numberphile

8 and 6 are lucky but 4 is unlucky... if you're Chinese!
More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓

Featuring Xiaohui Yuan from the University of Nottingham.

NUMBERPHILE

Videos by Brady Haran

[GoTFCanada]

One time, we were at a Chinese restaurant, and our bill was $88.88. The waiter was like, "Wow... you should try the lottery!"

[prufrock]

She did not mention this, but many tall buildings in China will skip the number 4 on their elevators. So the buttons will go 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15...just like many buildings in the US would skip floor 13.

[xvd]

I just noticed that the video is 8 minutes and 8 seconds. . .

[PieroVera]

The video is 8:08 long, as always. Love when numberphile does that :D

[lvxiaoxing]

I live in Beijing and have yet to see a button labeled "4" in any residential elevator. It's always 3a or 3 1/2 or some other variant that is not 4. However, public places like hospital, library and shopping center is the same as the rest of the world. Construction code specifically required that.

Let't be honest, all these lucky or unlucky is just superstitious, albeit deeply rooted in our culture but in big city like Beijing or Shanghai where you exposed to a lot of western culture, the younger generation really don't care that much about it and know that was just a thing for our grandparents and occasionally some uncultured vulgar rich douche (with expensive license plate like and such).

[ja-vishaara]

Of course you can avoid 4, although you'll have to avoid 6 and 8 too, use a base 4 system, 1, 2, 3, 10

[Nephoris]

Which Chinese man is luckier ? The one who found 8$ on the ground or the one who found 4 billion $ ?

:D

[qingyangzhang]

I am a chinese, I was born and raised in China and my favourite number is four. Don't know if it was me trying to be different, but when I was young, (each building in china are assigned a number) my house number was 4, I lived at the 4th floor, my mom and dad both worked at the fourth floor in their workplace, and at my gran's house in the south of china, we had an apartment and we lived at the fourth floor. I'm fine with it and I lived in the house for 6 years or something.
btw Im 14

[Kurtlane]

I wonder if Chinese people say "half of 8" instead of "4", just to turn the unlucky number into a lucky one?

[hebl]

So, Chinese unlucky number = 4, Western unlucky number = 13.
4 13 - turn that around.
3.14 ... just sayin'.

[HyunMoKoo]

4 is also considered unlucky in Korea. (Chinese cultural influence)
There are two ways to read 4 in Korea, Net(넷) and Sa(사) and the latter is derived from Chinese pronunciation which is same as Sa (사, 死 meaning Death, also from Chinese).

It's not so common nowadays but buildings build in older days would just skip 4th floor or mark 4th floor as 'F' floor. It is also not uncommon to skip apartment unit number 4. (ie: unit number goes 101, 102, 103, and then 105... etc)

[montanakobe]

8 has been my favorite and lucky number for ages! Never knew it had this connotation though

[zoez]

It's kinda funny to me that the unluckiest number (4) doubled is the luckiest number (8).

[RageAsian]

or "send out my poop"
or "Dad, pull out your hair"
or "penalize my feces"
all depending of the tone of each character.

[RevolutionibusOrbiumCoelestium]

The international dialing code for the UK is +44...

[louisng]

Also, Simplify Chinese simplifies different words to the same writing. An example would be 松(pine) and 鬆(loose;relax). They both get simplified to 松.

Traditional Chinese is now mostly used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and in oversea Chinese communities. More information about difference between the two systems can be found on the Wikipedia article "Debate on Traditional and Simplified Chinese Characters."

Traditional 6: 六
Traditional formal 6: 陸
Simplified 6: 六
Simplified formal 6: 陆

[nO_dNAL]

I knew 8 was lucky, but didn't think people took it that seriously!

[arcumaereum]

Wait you forgot about nine (jiu, 九) that rhymes and actually looks like the character for longevity (jiu, 久)!

[sirjelly]

In Japan, contractors and architects will intentionally omit the 4th floor from buildings. Essentially, what would be the 4th floor would just be called the 5th floor instead on signs and in elevators.

[twifosp]

This video got 88 thumbs down? Now I'm completely confused.