Notes » May 2008

Death-Defying

Regular readers know that some Hong Kongers are superstitious about the number four because it's a Cantonese homonym for death.

That's why many high-rises don't have a 4th, 14th, 24th or 34th floor, much as some North American buildings have no 13th floor.

The difference is that numerical superstitions are so ingrained in Hong Kong that certain events, such as license plate auctions, are treated as news: even more so when someone does something considered insane, like bidding HK$1 million for a number plate with four fours on it.

4444. Death.

Times four.

To some it might as well read "you're so screwed".

Flamboyant Shanghai-born shipping tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-tsung owns the plate 4, for which he paid HK$147,000 in 1978. He said at the time that in Shanghai dialect 4 sounded like "water", which implied wealth, not death. However, his Rolls-Royce caught fire and was badly damaged ...

Case in point. Chao may not have died, but he was way off in his interpretation, which makes me wonder just how much water was used to put out that fire.

But I digress. If you can't remember the last time you heard a North American news report about someone buying an unlucky license plate, there's a good reason.

No one cares.

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