In western cultures, the fear of "unlucky" number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia. Some cities skip "13th Avenue," and some buildings go directly from the 12th floor to the 14th floor. "4," "14," "24," and so on are commonly replaced with "3a," "13a," "23a," and so forth.
The Chinese system of numerology, which has echoes throughout Asia, gives significance to different numbers based upon the sounds of their names. Four is unlucky as it sounds like the word for death or suffering. It is avoided to the extent that buildings sometimes 'skip' the 4th floor, labelling it as the 5th, which can be confusing if you're deciphering levels in a lift! Two is considered lucky due to its connection with doubling and symmetry, and 8 is thought to bring good fortune. Nine, lucky in some places, is unlucky in Japan, but 13 is traditionally fine.
Tetraphobia is the practice of avoiding instances of the number 4. Four has been deemed unlucky in Korea because it sounds like the Chinese word for "death." (This refers to four in Sino-Korean numbers, which is pronounced "sah.") Four is also considered unlucky in China and Japan as well. It will help understand why certain buildings in Korea don't have a "fourth" floor. And it might be best to avoid groupings of things in fours, like when giving gifts. Hence it is tradition to avoid planning big events on the 4th day of the month.
In Korea, all elevators have the letter "F" to indicate the fourth floor instead of the number 4. Tetraphobia or the avoidance of the number four is quite real in Korea. The main reason why the number four has a bad reputation is because ofits pronunciation in the Sino-Korean languagewhich is quite close to the Chinese word for "death". As a consequence, you will not see any buildings in Korea that have the 4th floor. Incidentally, there will also be an avoidance of any door numbers and addresses that make use of the number 4. Any person born of the month of April—especially on the 4th, 14th, or 24th of that month are considered to be quite unlucky.
It's considered unlucky to have 13 guests at a dinner party, many buildings don't have a 13th floor and most people avoid getting married or buying a house on a day marked by this dreaded number. The pronunciation of the number four in Japanese is very similar to the word death, and because of this, four has been considered bad luck in Japan, Korea and China. It is considered very bad luck to give a gift that is made up of four pieces to someone. Many buildings in heavily Asian areas do not have a fourth floor, much like the way North American cultures treat the number 13.
By doing that it means they will die soon or you want them to die. Koreans believe that you shouldn't wash your hair on New Year's Day as you will wash away all the good luck and fortune down the drain. Also if you wash your hair before an exam you will wash away all your knowledge. It is believed that the droplets of rain symbolises droplets of fortunes, blessings, and wealth.
If you clean everything the bad spirits will realise that you are moving they will cling onto you until you arrive at your new home. If you don't clean up then you are tricking the spirits that you are still there and by the time you move it is already too late! In Korea it is custom to buy the host some presents when you enter their new home. By giving laundry detergent as a gift it will give them good luck. It is believed that the bubbles formed from the detergents symbolises many bubbles of blessings and good fortune.
Others believe it is because of the tie-in with 13 and the lunar cycle. 13 is the exact number of full moons in a calendar year, and since people have thought that the moon controls emotion and makes people a bit crazy, then 13 is bad luck. In many Persian cultures, 13 is unlucky as well, showing that this superstition crosses cultural borders. And of course, Friday the 13th is considered very bad luck. As discussed above, lucky mobile phone numbers are often rationally used as a symbol of success and wealth to distinguish meanings of social status.
In so doing, lucky mobile phone numbers become symbolic tokens that not only are used to maintain and develop social networks, but function to manage personal impression and convey meanings of social distinction. As symbolic tokens, mobile phone numbers transcend the restraints of time and space to certain degree, and thus manifest disembedding mechanism of modernity . This indicates clearly that the invented tradition of the social craze for lucky mobile phone numbers is not a sub-culture of superstition against modernity, but a very expression of it.
The East Asian culture has developed by sharing common grounds with Chinese Confucianism ethics . Korean culture, under the influence of fundamental principles of ancient Chinese science and philosophy, bears much similarity to Chinese culture such as the deeply rooted paterfamilias social structures. Moreover, 80% of Korean vocabulary has its origin in Chinese. As a result, Korean and Chinese languages have many words that have similar pronunciations.
For example, the number of 4 is detested in both cultures because it sounds like death. One Korean informant tells me that Korean people are so superstitious about the number of 4 that they even try to avoid using 4 for labeling the floors or apartments in some buildings. Four has been deemed unlucky in Korea because it sounds like the Chinese word for "death." (This refers to four in Sino-Korean numbers, which is pronounced "sah.") Four is also considered unlucky in China and Japan as well. It will help understand why certain buildings in Korea don't have a "fourth" floor.
In Korea, all elevators have the letter "F" to indicate the fourth floor instead of the number 4. Every country and culture has its own superstitions, especially when it comes to numbers. In the US, for example, the number 13 is considered bad luck, and it's why you'll rarely see a 13th floor in hotels and some taller buildings. On the other hand, the number 7 is considered lucky, especially when there are three 7s in a row. This superstition originates from the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea.
What Is The Lucky Number In Korea In Korean culture, it is preferable for one to die at home and for the body to remain in the home for some time. Leaving the house in a coffin was a means to dispose of the lingering attachment to the world, with the threshold of the front door thought to be a boundary between this world and the afterlife. Therefore, for a living person to step on the threshold of a door is considered a sign of bad luck. Superstitions about numbers may seem like they're little more than tall tales thought up by desperate gamblers, but these numerical superstitions impact virtually every stage of life and have moved well beyond the world of gambling.
Whether inspired by biblical stories or the legends of ancient people, these so-called lucky or unlucky properties assigned to numbers have real meaning to many people. Based on little more than a story, where the origin is often unknown, people will alter travel plans, delay purchases or spend their life savings on lottery tickets. Read on to learn about some of the most popular superstitions in the world of numbers.
In some Western countries, the number 13 is considered to be bad luck. It is often avoided and even the 13th day of the month, if it falls on a Friday, is considered to be an unlucky day. Sufferers of triskaidekaphobia are scared of anything labeled "13." In the United States, the two-dollar bill was phased out because people believed using them brought bad luck. They are still printed, but are only available by request at the bank. On the flip side, the number seven is considered a "lucky" number, especially evident at casinos where a seven is a good dice roll at the craps table or a "777" at the slot machines wins the jackpot. Nowadays, seven has been adopted as a lucky number in Korea.
Traditionally, the number three was considered good luck. Applying the concept of "invented traditions", the seemingly traditional superstitions in lucky mobile phone numbers are seen as being constructed and emerging within a datable period with great rapidity . "The peculiarity of 'invented' traditions is that the continuity with it is largely fictitious" .
Hobsbawm further argues that invented traditions occur more frequently at times of dramatic social transformation when old traditions are evaporating. Indeed, the ongoing social economic reforms in China appears to have uprooted individuals from "the hold of traditions", resulting in a social "anxiety" (Giddens 17-39). Although the belief in the magic power of words has existed in Chinese culture for a long time, the social craze for lucky numbers is a recent phenomenon. It originated in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, right after the open-up policy, which itself signaled a nationwide shift towards the pursuit and worship of wealth and fortune.
The basis for associating numbers with auspice mainly lies on pronunciations or homophony. For instance, in Cantonese, the number of 8 sounds the same with "fortune" (发). The number of 6 sounds like the word for "to flow" (溜) which means "everything goes smoothly". Another deadly Korean superstition is writing a living person's name in red ink. Traditional Korean culture uses red to write the names of the dead and doing the opposite is a big no-no and considered very unlucky and potentially life threatening. I wonder how many Korean's have tried killing their foes by repeatedly writing their name in red, unfortunately we couldn't find any statistics on the subject.
If you're teaching English in Korea then we strongly discourage you from using a red pen at school. If you mistakenly write a student's name in red they may assume you want them dead. In Italy, the number 17 is as unlucky as 13 is to Americans — for very good reason.
The Italians write 17 as XVII, which can be rearranged to form VIXI, which roughly translates to "I'm now dead" or "my life is over." Not a pleasant thought. Due to this negative connotation, the Italians bypass the number 17 in many of the same ways Americans skip over the number 13; they avoid using it to number airline seats, flights or the floors in buildings. Carmakers and other manufacturers avoid using the number when naming products or assigning model numbers, just in case. Ironically, the dreaded 13 is actually considered lucky in Italy, despite its reputation in many other parts of the world. As discussed above, when the possession of wealth signifies success, lucky mobile phone numbers acquired as a form of conspicuous consumption become a way of imagining success. The social meanings of lucky mobile phone numbers in China thus suggest a national priority and social anxiety towards "being rich".
As a result, the old superstition in the magic of numbers is transformed into a new "superstition" related to "fortune" that is regarded as bulwark against insecurity and the unknown, especially in an era of social reforms. As Max Chang wrote in a 2017 Next Shark article, the number 4 is unlucky for Chinese because the word is a homonym to a Chinese word for death. So imagine, having a phone number that begins with "444" sounds like death-death-death. That is why the Chinese will request custom phone numbers for their businesses or homes, to avoid the number 4. On the other hand, it's considered fortunate if you have a phone number with an 8. The economic policies pursued by the Rhee regime were not conducive to rapid development.
Rhee's government followed an import substitution industrialization policy in which imports were blocked in order to protect and encourage the development of domestic industries. While import substitution policies were pursued by many postcolonial states after World War II, this was not a practical policy for South Korea because it lacked natural resources and a large internal market. The economy instead relied on imported goods purchased with US aid funds, money spent by American soldiers in the country, and a flourishing black market in goods intended for the US forces stationed in the country. The United States encouraged Seoul to establish trade relations with Tokyo through rice and seaweed exports and attempted to interest the Japanese in investing in the country. But Rhee would not sign a peace treaty or establish diplomatic relations with his country's former enemy.
His anti-Japanese sentiments, while shared by most Koreans, went to extremes, including frequent clashes with Japanese fishing vessels and a constant state of tension with the country's former colonial master. Many believe that superstitious beliefs originated during the earliest days of humanity. Faced with natural phenomena like thunderstorms and earthquakes, as well as the unpredictability of illness and food supply, human beings attempted to create an understandable world of powers that could be influenced by action.
The earliest superstitions were created as a way to deal with the ignorance and fear of the unknown. Chance misfortunes could be ascribed a cause, and the potential to avoid or control them was created. In Chinese culture, fourth floor is usually omitted from most elevator fixtures in a Chinese building, this is because the number means "death (死)".
It was considered that the number 4 in Putunghua means "sì" while death is "sǐ" and Cantonese means "sei3" while death is "sei2". Some buildings in Asia skipped the fourth floor either by numbering it as "5" or by designating the floor as "3A" or something similar. In some buildings in South Korea, fourth floor is labelled "F" instead of 4 in elevators. The practice of avoiding instances of number 4 is called Tetraphobia. Accordingly, many public buildings and elevators in South Korea will actually have an "F" floor instead of a fourth, with no "4" in sight. For example in Italy, in contrast to many other countries, the number 13 is thought to bring prosperity and life.
In the Italian culture, it is actually the number 17 which is viewed as unlucky, as when written this number is said to look like death. Due to this negativity, the Italians bypass this number - avoiding using it to number airline seats, flights or the floors in buildings. It goes so far as manufacturers avoiding using this number when naming products or assigning model numbers. In a world where the majority of people don't identify themselves as particularly superstitious, it's astounding just how much impact superstitions about numbers can have on the economy. I was shocked to learn that businesses lose almost a billion dollars each time the 13th of the month just happens to fall on a Friday. While researching this article, I also learned that people in some Asian countries will pay a premium simply for a license plate or street address that contains a lucky number.
Manufacturers and retailers have caught on as well, assigning random prices to products that rely more on the inclusion of lucky numbers than on any retail strategy or research. The fetishism and faddism of lucky mobile phone numbers in present Chinese society reveal that the social structural vacuum in imaginary domain is filled up by widespread worship of gods of fortunes. That is, associating numbers with fortune and interpreting of unlucky numbers positively are creative activities by which people are provided with ontological security. By selecting numbers, mobile phone users demonstrate autonomy and spontaneity in expressing their desire to command their future and fortune.
First, the invented tradition in lucky mobile phone numbers has become highly fashionable trends in the popular culture of China because it is compatible with the ongoing social transformation in China. The number '4' is probably Asia's most unluckiest number as the Chinese characters of that number is very similar to the word 'death'. Hence it is tradition to avoid planning big events on the 4th day of the month or sometimes buildings have no 4th floors. Triskaidekaphobia, or the fear of the number 13, is even more widespread. So much so that many high-rise buildings, hotels, and hospitals skip the 13th floor, and many airports do not have gates numbered 13. In many parts of the world, having 13 people at the dinner table is considered bad luck.
Because the pronunciation of 4 is [사], sa], and it sounds the same as a Sino-Korean (사) which means "death". Therefore, they tend to avoid adding 4 when numbering the car number, apartment number, patient's room number and an examinee's seat number' as much as possible. Wherever you travel, prior knowledge of the traditions and superstitions surrounding significant dates and festivals can help avoid any faux pas.
One tradition that's well-known worldwide is the exchanging of bright red money envelopes during Lunar New Year. These are given to family and friends, but also colleagues and even sometimes to favourite celebrities. The envelope's red colour signifies prosperity and the money inside is always in crisp, new notes.
