If eight is the number that many Chinese-speaking communities welcome, four is the one they most often avoid. The practice is easy to describe and easy to exaggerate. This article keeps to what is well documented: why the sound of the word for four causes discomfort, how the habit appears in China, Japan and Korea, and the places where it shows up in building design and business. It is a description of a custom, and it makes no claim that four brings harm.
The sound link in Chinese
In Mandarin, four is pronounced sì and the word for death is sǐ. They differ in tone, but the syllable is the same, and the resemblance is enough to make the number feel awkward at moments when death is the last thing people want to mention. In Cantonese, four (sei) and death (sei) are very close as well, with only a difference in tone. As with the lucky eight, the link comes from the words and not from the quantity.
Some combinations are felt to be worse than the single digit. In some Chinese-speaking communities, fourteen and seventy-four are said to be worse still, because their spoken forms are heard as echoing phrases about dying. These are folk readings, and not everyone uses them.
Japan and Korea
Japanese and Korean borrowed their Sino-Japanese and Sino-Korean number words from Chinese, and the sound link came with them. In Japanese, the Chinese-derived reading of four is shi, which is also the reading of the character for death. Because of this, people often prefer the native reading yon, which is one reason the Japanese number readings have both Chinese-derived and native forms in everyday use. Nine can also be uncomfortable, since one of its readings (ku) sounds like the word for suffering or distress.
In Korean, four is sa, the same as the Sino-Korean word for death. Korean also has a native number system, which gives people an alternative in some situations, though the Sino-Korean form is used for many things such as floors and room numbers.
The three languages therefore share a mechanism but not identical details. In Japan, the extra concern with nine matters more than it does in China, where nine is regarded favourably. Treating the whole region as having one uniform superstition would be a mistake.
Where the habit shows up
The custom is most visible in buildings, because numbering is a design decision made once and seen daily.
- Floors. Some buildings in East Asia leave out a fourth floor, or label it with another symbol. In Korea, an “F” is sometimes used in elevator panels in place of four, and a related practice appears in other places. The omission is not universal: many buildings number floors straight through.
- Rooms and beds. Hospitals and care facilities in some countries avoid assigning four to rooms or beds, or avoid combinations containing it, because patients and families may find them upsetting. In Japan, the sound of 42 (read as “shi ni”) has been mentioned as a number to avoid in such settings, since it can sound like the word for “to die”.
- Gifts and sets. Items are often sold in sets of other numbers, and gifting four items is traditionally avoided in some places. In Japan, sets of five tableware pieces are common, partly for this reason, though other factors also play a part.
- Addresses and phone numbers. Numbers with fours tend to be less sought after, which is the other side of the premium that auspicious phone numbers with eights command.
Commentators often report these practices, but figures on how many buildings do this are not reliably available, so no percentage is given here.
A comparison with the West
Anyone in a Western country will recognise the structure, because the fear of thirteen leads many buildings in North America and Europe to omit a thirteenth floor. The reasons differ: thirteen’s reputation has religious and folklore origins, while the dislike of four rests on a sound resemblance. The similarity lies in the practical result, which is that a building’s numbering reflects a social preference and not the physical layout. In both cases the building has as many floors as before, and only the labels change.
Why the custom persists
Several reasons are usually given, and none of them requires belief that four is dangerous.
- Avoiding offence. A developer or hospital administrator may not share the belief but understands that clients do, and finds it cheaper to avoid the number than to explain.
- Social comfort. Skipping a number costs little and may spare people unease at a sensitive moment, such as a hospital stay.
- Habit. Once a convention exists in a building style, new buildings follow it.
Some people in these societies treat the matter lightly, and some actively disregard it. Younger generations and those living abroad often report differing attitudes.
Keeping the claim modest
Because the topic touches on death, it is easy to overstate. What can be said is that the word for four resembles the word for death in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, that this makes many people prefer to avoid it in certain settings, and that some institutions accommodate the preference in their numbering. There is no evidence that avoiding or using the number changes anything about health or safety, and a careful account treats it as a language-driven social custom.