Don't know about Cantonese, but the Japanese word for "four" is pronounced "shi", and the Japanese word for "death" is also pronounced "shi". They are radically (pun intended) different when written, but when spoken they are homonyms. Any number that has a "four" in it is thus unlucky. Here's more on Mandarin Chinese number beliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture In Russia, you dare not give a dozen roses to your girl friend. You must give some odd number of flowers (11 or 13 would be good). An even number of flowers are associated with death and funerals. And so on wherever humans live. Western cultures typically view 666 as extremely suspect, along with 13. Also the poker hand of two pairs, consisting of two aces and two eights, are known as "Dead man's hand" because Wild Bill Hickok was killed while playing poker and holding those cards. There is no thing anywhere that cannot be considered unlucky by someone or lucky by someone else. Having your hair cut or your fingernails trimmed on a Sunday is bad juju in certain area. Blacks cats, broken mirrors, stepping on a crack in a concrete sidewalk, ..., the list is endless. Bill Fairchild
----- Original Message ----- From: "Elardus Engelbrecht" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 1:50:39 AM Subject: Re: Beyond the EC12 Ron Hawkins wrote: >Reminds me of a Hong Kong building I was living in. >The floors went 11, 12, 12a, 14, 15... Weird. If you truly believe in God, you really don't need all those superstitions. Perhaps, it is only me, but for me, avoidance or relying in specific numbers are IMHO just a waste of time. >Which was strange seeing 14 is unlucky for the Cantonese Why? What is the matter with 14? Is this a grown-up version of 13? ;-) Ok, I will not contribute anymore to this thread ... Groete / Greetings Elardus Engelbrecht ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
