Eight is a lucky number in China, and they take it very seriously. Its origins are rooted in the Chinese language where homonyms and (to Western eyes) random connections in language are either auspicious or ominous. The Chinese word for Wealth is Fa, and eight is pronounced Ba. It's a slight connection, but significant.
If you remember the Beijing Olympics started on August (the 8th month) 8, 2008, and as close to 8:08.08pm Beijing time as they could get it. A national, even global, event scheduled around the number 8.
Here are several other examples I pulled from Wikipedia:
* A telephone number with all digits being eights was sold for US$270,723 in Chengdu, China.
* A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million (roughly USD$164,000).
* The value of eight could also be linked with Buddhism and the meaning of the Lotus flower (which has eight petals)
* As part of grand opening promotions, a Commerce Bank branch in New York's Chinatown raffled off safety deposit #888 (apparently it carries beyond the borders of the political entity).
We recently moved apartments to the 8th floor of the 8th building in our complex. We were originally on the 4th floor (a Chinese homonym for death-not a popular floor in China). We just might be more 'lucky' now.
What does this auspicious day hold?
- Em and I are going to try and finish writing thank yous for our wedding. I know, we TOTALLY broke the rule for timing of writing thank yous. But we haven't forgotten you, and we are SO thankful!
- We had plans to buy bicycles today, but the rain has pushed that back.
- Chinese is ever on the list.
- Try to figure out how to get videos of my video camera and start video blogging (fun!)
Trying to keep it simple on a Saturday.
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