Please tell me how on earth can a "Cantonese" numbering superstition ever reach the Mainland when it has always been part of the mainland. Do you even know where the name "Cantonese" came from? "Canton" is what the early westerner call the city of Guangzhou. Cantonese is the primary local language which the entire Guangdong province (now with a population of more than 100 million) speaks. Are you trying to tell me that the province of Guangzhou was not part of the mainland? What is it, if it is not part of the Mainland? Is it an Island?
CV-17 Shandong (002 carrier) Thread I ...News, Views and operations
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Please tell me how on earth can a "Cantonese" numbering superstition ever reach the Mainland when it has always been part of the mainland. Do you even know where the name "Cantonese" came from? "Canton" is what the early westerner call the city of Guangzhou. Cantonese is the primary local language which the entire Guangdong province (now with a population of more than 100 million) speaks. Are you trying to tell me that the province of Guangzhou was not part of the mainland? What is it, if it is not part of the Mainland? Is it an Island?
First of all, Traditional Chinese don't prioritize individual numbers themselves superstitiously. Numbers are attached to things and time. For example, if a person's mother or father died on the date of August 8th (八月八日), this person will NOT IN A MILLION YEARS treat the number 8 as a lucky number. "8" will become associated with the death anniversary (忌日) of his/her parent, and thus became a symbol of remembrance and mourning. This is because Filial Piety (I use capital letters because this is pretty much a religious principle in China) is held in much higher regard than some numbers.
Secondly, traditional Chinese superstition has two interesting principle:
1. Yin-yang duality,
2. Balance;
Yin-yang duality means that every revered number or concept of element is both good and bad.
For example, in some traditions in China, the number 7 is a sacred number, as this is the number of celestial elements: Sun (日), Moon (月), Gold star (Venus, 金星), Wood Star (Jupiter, 木星), Water Star (Mercury, 水星), Fire Star (Mars, 火星), Earth Star (Saturn, 土星). This is known as 七曜(Seven Stars)，also known as 七政, 七纬 or 七耀. This is still used in Japanese language for weekdays today.
The number 7, according to Han dynasty philologist Xu Shen (許慎，30 - 148 CE), is the "Standard/rectification of Yang" (七，陽之正也).
One other example is "七夕", pronounced "Qixi" in mandarin. This is known as the "Valentine's day of the East", pronounced "Tanabata" in Japanese, and is supposed to be the 7th day of July in either the Traditional Chinese calendar (or in the Gregorian Calendar in Japan after the Meiji Restoration). Actually, in the original story, the actual day of the annual union of the human cowherd and the celestial weaver girl was never specifically mentioned. According to the Song dynasty Leishu Encyclopedia 《太平御覽》, people consider the day July 7th (七月七日) as a very lucky and good day, therefore they assigned this day as the day when the Cowherd gets to meet the Weaver Girl every year.
But the number 7 is also associated with death and mourning (which according to the peasant-talking Hong Kongers is automatically bad, because those uncultured peasant HKers considers everything associated with death as bad). When a person passes away, one of his/her immediate relative needs to be chosen to be the guardian of his/her soul for 7 days. This is called “頭七”. This tradition is actually a part of a very complex mourning rites (go search for 做七 for more detail). But the entire rites incorporates a lot of number 7 in its structure. The original reason is actually because number 7 is a sacred and power number, and only the utilization of this number grants enough power to comfort the soul and lay it to rest. But again, according to HK peasants, everything associated with death is BAD. So 7 must be a BAD number, OMG!
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Another colored photograph, possibly of the CV-XX.
Brumby
Major
I know about numbers and its meaning as I am a native Cantonese speaker. The genesis of this topic was why the official secrecy over the number and there was an attempt to explain it as associated with some form of superstitious. The choice of number I can understand but why the secrecy?
vesicles
Colonel
I was responding to your comment about the potential banning of superstition within the CCP and the Chinese government.
I have no clue why they keep it secret.
Get back to topic please. No more discussions on Hong Kong or Mainland superstitions.
Siege please allow me a chance to respond once since I was addressed and that post was not deleted.
From my experience and those of my parents', Chinese mainland never had these numbering superstitions from Mao's era until at least the late 90s. Especially during Mao's era, these superstitions were banned. Of course you're right in the Guangzhou - Canton stuff... what I meant was the 8 and 4 influence had a resurgence in the last few decades in part due to closer ties between mainland and HK. Obviously Guangdong people speak "Cantonese" or Guangdong hua. But because I'm not from that region, I cannot say whether mainland Cantonese had number superstitions to the same level.
Obviously all of China was and is superstitious. It was a matter of government approval during the earlier decades of CCP. The emperors were superstitious with numbers too. Take a look at the use of the number nine (and variants) in the imperial palaces and the mansions of nobleman in Beijing. The use of bats which are near homophones of fortune, when written too. So what I was referring to was the resurgence of 4 being unlucky and 8 being lucky from Cantonese regions. This is from experience and may not be true admittedly but I suspect it may be accurate. Today the CCP is partaking in these practices as evidenced by perhaps an intentional avoidance of number 4 and use of 8. Olympics was pointed out as an example.
It is not just the Cantonese that have this numbering superstitions. Fujian (Minnan or Hokkien or Taiwanese or whatever you wish to call it by), Hainanese, Hakka, Teochew and even the Japanese have the same superstition on the no.4. No. 4 sounds like death in their language.
Go to any buildings in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand or Japan, there is hardly any 4th floor. There is only floor no. 3A.
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