The Chinese are very superstitious when it comes to figures, they choose telephone numbers, house number, business numbers, car number plates and anything that has numbers in very carefully.
Every month we get to visit several homes and businesses on consultations and it amazes us as how far our clients take Feng Shui almost to paranoia, which is not good. If you have bad numbers do not worry about it, as I will show you how to eliminate the inauspicious effects.
A little story to begin with, last Friday night I was parked outside the cinema waiting to pick up my two boys and as much as I hate to admit it I was listening to BBC radio 4. I know you always think of the Archers or such like and this is what my Grandma used to listen too, they have some great debates on some nights.
Anyway this program was about superstition, and one of the interviewers was saying how she was not superstitious but had spent the last 30 years saluting magpies or never walking under ladders or the cracks of pavements. Well numbers and Feng Shui, are more superstitious Chinese folklore than anything else, do I take it seriously? Yes and no, if I found the perfect Feng Shui house with a good facing direction and it was good for my family but the house number was number 4, I would still buy it although I have to admit I would use the counter measures listed below.
The main reason these numbers are considered unlucky is because the way the numbers sounds when spoken especially to the Cantonese. An example in western numbers would be the #11 could sound like heaven or #8 sounds like weight or #1 sounds like son, do you see what I mean? So if you have an unlucky #4 and you are from a country other than China. Think of #4 as sounding like "more" which is great.
Numbers considered unlucky:
#4 (Sei) the worst number, why? Because in Cantonese when spoken sounds like the word death. #13 because if you add 1=3 = 4 as above. #24 #104 are also considered unlucky
Numbers considered lucky
8, 18, 28, 38, 48, 54, 68, 80, 84, 88, 99, 168 & 108 are all good numbers, the reason #8 is so lucky is because if you say the word (patt) it sounds like "faat" which means "prosperity & abundance"
There are many other numbers I have read about that are considered unlucky in my opinion this is "cannon fodder" and just written about to fill books, if you think about it you could go on for ages, #4 when spoken in English sounds like door, more, store, bore, jaw, paw and "SAW" which out of all of these sounds the worst
The cure:
If you own a home or business with a 4 or 13 is to draw a circle around the number, seriously it is that simple. The circle is extremely powerful and encloses the inauspicious effects of a negative number. So if you have a house number 4, a cheap way of curing is to go outside and draw a circle around your number or if you have time and money pop down to your local hardware store and find one of those ceramic door numbers that you can customise with a circle around the number, all this time you were worrying about nothing.
How seriously do we take numbers? I would be over the moon if we found the perfect house with great flying stars and it was #8 or 88, but I would not be put off buying it if it were #4 or 13, I would use the cure as above though or change it to a house name like "rose cottage" etc.