Comments on: Fun With Numbers – the Chinese way

By: bj

bj — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:17:26 +0000

yes

By: Brian Ede

Brian Ede — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:53:00 +0000

We can’t seem to stop ourselves.

In the course of a longstanding relationship one of my frustrations was the continued references by the in-laws to food as “heaty”, “cooling” etc..
Asian Superstition!!

I eventually entered politics for a party which, due to its support for Aboriginal Land Rights etc. was at the time very unpopular. It just ‘may’ have been coincidence but all successful candidates for our party were allocated electorate office phone numbers that ended in 666.

By: Mandible

Mandible — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:50:15 +0000

It’s an interesting case of cultural synaesthesia, and one can speculate on its influence on the Chinese propensity to gambling. You also have to wonder why the revolutionaries didn’t attempt to invent an alternative number system. But then the French revolution came up with decimal time, and that hardly lasted ten months. The Chinese aren’t alone in persistent number-based superstitions of course. I once had a pager number 666, which made me a figure of more fear than was my due as a manager of staff well schooled in their Torah/Old Testament. I thanked my lucky stars I was a completely un-superstitious atheist. ;

By: John Noble

John Noble — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:45:26 +0000

This is very interesting because who, even as a die-hard sceptic, could deny that they probably wouldn’t want to go around telling people they lived in apartment number “death, certain death”?

Seriously – think about it. Actually imagine that the English word “four”, when spoken, is exactly the same as our word for “death”, and “one” is “certain”. When you say “four one four” you really are enunciating the phrase “death, certain death”.

It’s often easy as a “rational, level headed sceptic” to dismiss this kind of superstition as nonsense. I’m the hardest sceptic of them all but need reminding every now and then that we humans are just that: we’re human. We’re a bit strange sometimes. We don’t like people thinking about their impending death when they come to visit us; you can be as rational as you like but you wouldn’t like it either. :-)

Thanks, Yau-Man. Great post.

By: George Stearns

George Stearns — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:34:20 +0000

54 to all.

By: BillDarryl

BillDarryl — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:02:17 +0000

I had a lightbulb moment this last weekend!

There are a few Chinese restaraunts in my city with three digit numbers in their names. I always wondered why. I passed one the other day and suddenly remembered this post!

The three in town I can think of have 1-6-8, 3-6-9, and 8-8-8 in their names. So I check the above list, and sure enough, all are very positive numbers.

Now as a true skeptic, I certainly can’t say “mystery solved,” but I am proud I got confirmation on my hypothesis!

By: Dumpster

Dumpster — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:13:03 +0000

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.

Also, thanks for differentiating the serious part from the silly part of my post. After ten years of using the internet, you’d think I’d remember the cardinal rule that other people can’t always tell what’s serious and what is not when you’re only posting words.

By: Yau-Man Chan

Yau-Man Chan — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:59:45 +0000

To mikekoz68: I think you’ll find that most “successful” ancient cultures will have an abundance of superstitions which helped them cope with life. With very little contact with the outside world, and not having been colonized, this very inward-looking culture continued to have a superiority complex about where they stood in the world community. By the time the Chinese realized that they were way way behind the West in science and technology, it was too late. The Communist Party went about modernization in a most draconian way – culture revolution, Red Guards and “Re-Education” campaign, all of which did not endear their population to modernity. If you want to know how a great ancient culture like the Chinese did not develop science and missed growing a movement like the Enlightenment that swept Europe beginning in the 16th Century, I highly recommend a book by the late president of the American Anthropology Association Francis Hsu: “American and Chinese – Passage to Difference” The chapter on the Chinese lack of Science and Music is the best explanation I have run across.

To Dumpster: The Chinese counting system is one to ten and is very consistent. Eleven is just ten-one, twelve is ten-two. Twenty is two-ten, thirty is three-ten. So, twenty five is just two-ten-five. No zeros required. Digit to the left is multiplier and digit to the right is addition. Works great for addition, subtraction and multiplication on the abacus but absolutely impossible when it comes to division!

By: Dumpster

Dumpster — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:17:30 +0000

Are the ten’s supposed to be zeros?

So why don’t the Chinese just switch to a base six numerical system where they leave out the four’s, five’s, seven’s, and ten’s?

I know five’s meaning the opposite aren’t necessarily bad, but why take chances?

1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19,…

By: mikekoz68

mikekoz68 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:33:10 +0000

Hate to say it but i’m losing more and more respect for the Chinese with every post. Not that I think they are….well I had held them to a higher standard it’s sad to see they are just like the rest of the world- superstitious.