Friday the 13th

Today is the second Friday the 13th in 2009, and so I've decided to learn about unlucky numbers in China. 13 is not considered to be especially lucky or unlucky although, thanks to contact with Western countries, I've been in buildings that skip from floor 12 straight to 15 (14 containing the unlucky number 4).

The Chinese number 4 is considered unlucky because of its similarity in pronunciation with the word for death. Although 4 is pronounced fourth tone and death is third tone, it seems that Chinese don't take any chances and try to avoid the number at all costs. When newspaper stands sell phone numbers, they have a big board and cross out the ones that have already been sold. The numbers with fours are always the last to go, and I know one person who bought a phone number with four fours for fifteen rmb (roughly $2) less than my four-free number.

But the number four also pops up in many good things, which has been perplexing to me. There are the Four Beauties of Ancient China, the Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature, the Four Great Inventions of Ancient China, and chengyu(in chinese), ancient Chinese idioms that are almost all made up of four characters. It turns out that despite its pronunciation, the number four also represents a very important concept throughout Chinese history: harmony. Something composed of four characters is completely balanced because of the square (or four-sided) nature of Chinese characters. You don't have to be able to read 卸磨杀驴(xie4mo4sha1lv2 killing the donkey as soon as it's left the mill-getting rid of someone as soon as they've outlived their usefulness), to see the balance in the four characters.

Even phrases that aren't standard chengyu always try to fit into four characters. Hu Jintao's ambiguous concept 'harmonious society' is 和谐社会, four characters, in Chinese. (For more information on 'harmonious society and the grass mud horse see CDT. Note: obscene and blocked in China.) There's an interesting reference to the Chinese musical conception of harmony here at NPR (via Granite Studio). Excerpt:

"The idea of harmony as a combination of different chords and notes was a foreign notion.
Today, China's rulers once again espouse a "harmonious society." Of course, not everyone buys into this orthodoxy, even at the risk of being branded a dissonant dissident."

Liang Jingyu(in Chinese), an architect I heard give a lecture the other day, explained his thoughts on harmonious society: It's not about singing with the same voice, “it's about each voice singing on its own but still sounding pleasant." (声音不一样,但放在一起他们还不刺耳，my translation)

I found there's even double harmony in the bathroom as I took my morning constitutional (on a public squat toilet):

来也匆匆
去也冲冲

"If you're a-rushin' when you pop a squat,
Please be a-flushin' when you leave the pot."