To Be or Not to Be Superstitious–That's the Question

Numbers, to most Chinese, are considered to be auspicious or inauspicious, depending on the sound of the number. This may appear non-scientific and silly to an outsider, yet most Chinese adhere to this belief. Number 8 is believed to have auspicious meaning because this sound has a positive meaning of prosperity, whereas 4, a negative meaning since the sound is phonologically similar to the meaning of ‘death’, leading to tetraphobia. The objective of this research is, therefore, to scrutinize Chinese perceptions towards numbers in Hong Kong. An exploratory approach and qualitative survey method were adopted in this study whereby 40 Chinese (Cantonese and Putonghua speakers) were interviewed to collect their views on odd, even, and combined numbers. The findings depicted that there were significant differences in their notions and interpretations of these numbers; for instance, 54 (=not die) is a good number to a Cantonese speaker but a bad number (=I’ll die) to a Putonghua speaker. To conclude, the sound of these numbers may create a positive/negative psychological effect on people. More research is needed to examine different Chinese speakers (Chiu Chow, Hakka, Fukien etc) living in different cities and countries to document their intuitive reaction towards numbers.