In Chinese communities around the world, eight is considered
the most fortuitous of numbers, making it much coveted for addresses, phone
numbers and bank accounts."
If you're Chinese--every fifth person in the world is--an
eight not only portends prosperity but
confidence and money worth even millions,
depending where you are.
"In Hong Kong, a personal
license plate with the number eight can cost
millions of dollars," says Alhambra,
California developer Raymond Cheng, who was
born
and reared in the [former] British colony.
"A single eight on your license plate gives you status. People know you have to
pay top dollars for it."
Today--the eighth day of the eighth month--the cultural
significance
of the number eight will be renewed
in the Chinese American communities
in the United States too.
For centuries, this ancient culture has held eight as the
most
fortuitous of numbers. Early
Chinese settlers coming to California
a
century and a half ago brought
their beliefs with them, passing them on
to the new generations.
Since the '70s, with the influx of moneyed immigrants to the
state
from Taiwan
and Hong Kong, the traditional tenet about the number
eight
has moved beyond the gates of Chinatowns
to become an American suburban
fact of life.
Chinese home buyers in the San
Gabriel Valley
routinely look for an
eight in a street address, viewing
it as an added value. Some try to have
their home address changed to
include an eight. Others seek to rid a
number, such as a four--considered
unlucky because it sounds like the
Chinese word for "death."
Many pay to get as many eights as they can in
phone, fax and license numbers.
There is even a Chinese restaurant named 888 in Rosemead.
Chinese
Yellow Pages for the San Gabriel
Valley have more eight combinations
than
one thought imaginable.
"If they get a phone number or a checking account with
a lot of
eights, they're extremely
happy," says Councilwoman Judy Chu of Monterey
Park, who is Chinese American.
Recently, when she opened an account at a Monterey Park
bank, the bank
made sure it had many eights.
"They thought I would be pleased," Chu says.
Next door in Alhambra,
Raymond Cheng and his wife, Tina, have a lot of
eights between them.
His business phone is (818) 282-2828. His fax number: (818)
282-0283.
Their three cars--a Rolls-Royce, his and her
Mercedes-Benzes--also have
ample sprinkling of the number
eight. And, naturally, their home phone
and street address are sprinkled
with eights. (His parents' Hong Kong
flat is on the 18th floor and the
street number on their San Francisco
home is 18.)
Cheng, who serves on more than 10 civic and professional
boards in
addition to owning a development
company and a Chinese restaurant, won't
go so far as to say that the many
eights in his life contributed to his
visible prosperity.
But his wife ventures: "All things being equal, an
eight gives you
added confidence." After all,
it's worked for Hong Kong.
One has to ask the question why has Hong Kong
done so well in such a
little space? Cheng says.
"Hong Kong is a small island
with no natural resource, and yet it is
one of the world's most important
financial centers."
Here in Los Angeles,
too, he lives with what he calls a "Hong Kong
syndrome."
Not long after opening his own company in 1983, Cheng won a
contract
to remodel Los Angeles National
Bank in Monterey Park.
"I had to complete everything in 2 1/2 months because
the owner
absolutely said a grand opening
would be on Aug. 8," Cheng recalls.
Working nights and weekends and getting a city inspector to
come out
on a Saturday, Cheng made sure the
bank had the grand opening on Aug. 8.
"There was no other reason except that the date
signified good fortune
and prosperity," he says.
Daniel T.C. Liao, a ranking Taiwanese government official
who served
as the director of the Chinese
Cultural Center
in El Monte, says the
A Numerology Guide for Everyday Living
|
belief follows wherever Chinese go.
"Orientals in general and Chinese in particular believe
in sounds and
figures that reflect good fortune
and good luck," Liao says.
"It doesn't cost you anything to believe in good luck. If
you have a
license number with an eight, you
drive more comfortably. If you live in
a house with an eight, you live
more comfortably. Thinking that you are
blessed, you perform better,"
he says.
The value of the number eight is also tied to the Chinese
affinity for
homonyms. "The Chinese like to
make use of sounds that make them feel
comfortable," says Liao, a
linguist by training.
The phonetic sound of eight--"baat" in Cantonese
and between "pa" and
"ba" in Mandarin--is
similar to "faat," meaning prosperity, say native
Mandarin and Cantonese speakers.
When you have two eights, as in the area code 818, it's
doubly
pleasing to the Chinese ear.
"You're literally hearing prosperity and more prosperity," Liao says.
So, for example, Raymond Cheng's telephone number (818)
282-2828
translates to "prosperity
guaranteed prosperity-easy prosperity and more
easy prosperity." His fax
number, (818) 282-0283, means "prosperity
guaranteed prosperity-easy prosperity
twice and long life" (for good
measure).
Perhaps that's why of all the area codes on the continental
United
States, the Chinese like 818 the best. "There are
people who moved here because of the area code,"
Councilwoman Chu says. Monterey Park
is the only city on the continental
United
States with an
Asian majority.
Some Chinese Americans go so far as to say that the
phenomenal growth
of the Chinese population in the San
Gabriel Valley in
the last two
decades is because of the
auspicious 818 area code.
"It's no accident that developer Fred Hsieh capitalized
on the area
code in marketing Monterey
Park as the Chinese Beverly Hills," says Angi
Ma Wong, a Chinese American intercultural consultant in Los
Angeles. "The
area code was so good that it
brought the development of new capital, new
immigration and helped this whole
area bloom."
But now, the prized area code may be taken away from the San
Gabriel
Valley. Because of the
proliferation of phone numbers, the state Public
Utilities Commission has been asked to split up the San
Fernando Valley's
818 area code in Burbank
and install the new 626 area code in communities
from Burbank
east into the San Gabriel Valley.
That spells death to the Chinese because 626 adds up to 14.
While four means death, 14 is even
worse. "Fourteen means guaranteed death,"
Wong says. "Whether read from right to left as the
Chinese do, or from left to right as the Americans do, it
means the same thing--guaranteed
death."
