As discussed above, lucky mobile phone numbers are often rationally used as a symbol of success and wealth to distinguish meanings of social status. In so doing, lucky mobile phone numbers become symbolic tokens that not only are used to maintain and develop social networks, but function to manage personal impression and convey meanings of social distinction. As symbolic tokens, mobile phone numbers transcend the restraints of time and space to certain degree, and thus manifest disembedding mechanism of modernity .
This indicates clearly that the invented tradition of the social craze for lucky mobile phone numbers is not a sub-culture of superstition against modernity, but a very expression of it. By doing that it means they will die soon or you want them to die. Koreans believe that you shouldn't wash your hair on New Year's Day as you will wash away all the good luck and fortune down the drain. Also if you wash your hair before an exam you will wash away all your knowledge. It is believed that the droplets of rain symbolises droplets of fortunes, blessings, and wealth. If you clean everything the bad spirits will realise that you are moving they will cling onto you until you arrive at your new home.
If you don't clean up then you are tricking the spirits that you are still there and by the time you move it is already too late! In Korea it is custom to buy the host some presents when you enter their new home. By giving laundry detergent as a gift it will give them good luck. It is believed that the bubbles formed from the detergents symbolises many bubbles of blessings and good fortune.
Tetraphobia is the practice of avoiding instances of the number 4. Four has been deemed unlucky in Korea because it sounds like the Chinese word for "death." (This refers to four in Sino-Korean numbers, which is pronounced "sah.") Four is also considered unlucky in China and Japan as well. It will help understand why certain buildings in Korea don't have a "fourth" floor. And it might be best to avoid groupings of things in fours, like when giving gifts.
Hence it is tradition to avoid planning big events on the 4th day of the month. In Korea, all elevators have the letter "F" to indicate the fourth floor instead of the number 4. Every country and culture has its own superstitions, especially when it comes to numbers. In the US, for example, the number 13 is considered bad luck, and it's why you'll rarely see a 13th floor in hotels and some taller buildings.
On the other hand, the number 7 is considered lucky, especially when there are three 7s in a row. In some Western countries, the number 13 is considered to be bad luck. It is often avoided and even the 13th day of the month, if it falls on a Friday, is considered to be an unlucky day. Sufferers of triskaidekaphobia are scared of anything labeled "13." In the United States, the two-dollar bill was phased out because people believed using them brought bad luck.
They are still printed, but are only available by request at the bank. On the flip side, the number seven is considered a "lucky" number, especially evident at casinos where a seven is a good dice roll at the craps table or a "777" at the slot machines wins the jackpot. Nowadays, seven has been adopted as a lucky number in Korea.
Traditionally, the number three was considered good luck. Tetraphobia or the avoidance of the number four is quite real in Korea. The main reason why the number four has a bad reputation is because ofits pronunciation in the Sino-Korean languagewhich is quite close to the Chinese word for "death". As a consequence, you will not see any buildings in Korea that have the 4th floor. Incidentally, there will also be an avoidance of any door numbers and addresses that make use of the number 4. Any person born of the month of April—especially on the 4th, 14th, or 24th of that month are considered to be quite unlucky.
As Max Chang wrote in a 2017 Next Shark article, the number 4 is unlucky for Chinese because the word is a homonym to a Chinese word for death. So imagine, having a phone number that begins with "444" sounds like death-death-death. That is why the Chinese will request custom phone numbers for their businesses or homes, to avoid the number 4. On the other hand, it's considered fortunate if you have a phone number with an 8. Four has been deemed unlucky in Korea because it sounds like the Chinese word for "death." (This refers to four in Sino-Korean numbers, which is pronounced "sah.") Four is also considered unlucky in China and Japan as well.
It will help understand why certain buildings in Korea don't have a "fourth" floor. In Korea, all elevators have the letter "F" to indicate the fourth floor instead of the number 4. This superstition originates from the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea.
In Korean culture, it is preferable for one to die at home and for the body to remain in the home for some time. Leaving the house in a coffin was a means to dispose of the lingering attachment to the world, with the threshold of the front door thought to be a boundary between this world and the afterlife. Therefore, for a living person to step on the threshold of a door is considered a sign of bad luck.
As discussed above, when the possession of wealth signifies success, lucky mobile phone numbers acquired as a form of conspicuous consumption become a way of imagining success. The social meanings of lucky mobile phone numbers in China thus suggest a national priority and social anxiety towards "being rich". As a result, the old superstition in the magic of numbers is transformed into a new "superstition" related to "fortune" that is regarded as bulwark against insecurity and the unknown, especially in an era of social reforms. The East Asian culture has developed by sharing common grounds with Chinese Confucianism ethics . Korean culture, under the influence of fundamental principles of ancient Chinese science and philosophy, bears much similarity to Chinese culture such as the deeply rooted paterfamilias social structures. Moreover, 80% of Korean vocabulary has its origin in Chinese.
As a result, Korean and Chinese languages have many words that have similar pronunciations. For example, the number of 4 is detested in both cultures because it sounds like death. One Korean informant tells me that Korean people are so superstitious about the number of 4 that they even try to avoid using 4 for labeling the floors or apartments in some buildings. Although the belief in the magic power of words has existed in Chinese culture for a long time, the social craze for lucky numbers is a recent phenomenon. It originated in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, right after the open-up policy, which itself signaled a nationwide shift towards the pursuit and worship of wealth and fortune.
The basis for associating numbers with auspice mainly lies on pronunciations or homophony. For instance, in Cantonese, the number of 8 sounds the same with "fortune" (发). The number of 6 sounds like the word for "to flow" (溜) which means "everything goes smoothly". Eastern cultures place a lot of importance on wealth and good fortune. They also believe thatnumbers have important meaningsand messages—particularly if they keep on repeating in your life. The number eight is thought to bring in money and luck so Koreans try to book special events like dates, business meetings, and weddings on dates which have a lot of the number eight in it.
One of the most popular and wealthy celebrities, G-Dragon of BIGBANG, was born on the 18th of August in the year 1988. It can be argued that with so muchpresence of the number 8in his existence, he's a really lucky fellow. It is early morning and you immediately spot a crow as you walk out of the house. Crows in Korea are symbols of bad luck and spotting one in the morning will result in a bad day.
Why Is 7 A Lucky Number In Korea Even though western magpies represent bad luck, if you see a Korean magpie in the morning it is considered to be very good luck. Magpies are seen as bringers of good news, so if you see one good things will happen to you on that day. Magpies are seen as bringers of good news, so if you see one good thing will happen to you on that day. First, the invented tradition in lucky mobile phone numbers has become highly fashionable trends in the popular culture of China because it is compatible with the ongoing social transformation in China. As consumers of commodities where the global and local are thus interconnected, mobile phone users achieve hybrid identities.
Hopefully, "where there is consumption there is pleasure, and where there is pleasure there is agency" . From this perspective, we may see the opposing orientations between the colonialization of life-world and the autonomy of individual actors. For example in Italy, in contrast to many other countries, the number 13 is thought to bring prosperity and life. In the Italian culture, it is actually the number 17 which is viewed as unlucky, as when written this number is said to look like death. Due to this negativity, the Italians bypass this number - avoiding using it to number airline seats, flights or the floors in buildings. It goes so far as manufacturers avoiding using this number when naming products or assigning model numbers.
Like in Chinese and Japanese, the number "4" is a bad number because it's like the word for "death" in Chinese. Sometimes you'll see buildings without a 4th floor, for example. And like "Friday the 13th", some view the 4th of the month to be unlucky, too. Accordingly, many public buildings and elevators in South Korea will actually have an "F" floor instead of a fourth, with no "4" in sight. Applying the concept of "invented traditions", the seemingly traditional superstitions in lucky mobile phone numbers are seen as being constructed and emerging within a datable period with great rapidity . "The peculiarity of 'invented' traditions is that the continuity with it is largely fictitious" .
Hobsbawm further argues that invented traditions occur more frequently at times of dramatic social transformation when old traditions are evaporating. Indeed, the ongoing social economic reforms in China appears to have uprooted individuals from "the hold of traditions", resulting in a social "anxiety" (Giddens 17-39). In tracing the continuity and changes of the social practice of lucky numbers, I take South Korea, which has a certain cultural proximity to China, as a comparison with China for this study. My analysis also reveals that the invented tradition of lucky mobile phone numbers is not a superstition against rationality, but a manifestation of modernity.
In your case, you're lucky that you have people of your own kind that might fit a little easier in society and more likely to speak your own language. Imagine if you decided to go with maximizing efficiency and you wanted to import the cheapest labor. Maybe the Korean-Chinese were not the cheapest and you decided to bring in Bangladeshis or Han Chinese, and you ended up with a million Chinese in 10 years. And, in this hypothetical scenario, they don't want to go, they stay illegally and become a minority of sorts. And lets also imagine you have some security troubles with North Korea or China itself.
And one of these countries says if you do anything, we will use these people against you, that tomorrow, you will have a million people that you can't control that could undermine your national security. That hypothetical scenario has happened in many parts of the world. First, Korean people detest the number 4 traditionally. Because the pronunciation of 4 is [사], sa], and it sounds the same as a Sino-Korean (사) which means "death". Therefore, they tend to avoid adding 4 when numbering the car number, apartment number, patient's room number and an examinee's seat number' as much as possible.
The fetishism and faddism of lucky mobile phone numbers in present Chinese society reveal that the social structural vacuum in imaginary domain is filled up by widespread worship of gods of fortunes. That is, associating numbers with fortune and interpreting of unlucky numbers positively are creative activities by which people are provided with ontological security. By selecting numbers, mobile phone users demonstrate autonomy and spontaneity in expressing their desire to command their future and fortune. The dual purposes of this study are to answer the question of whether a belief in lucky mobile phone numbers is an old superstition or a manifestation of modernity, and to explore the socio-cultural roots of the phenomenon. The findings not only support that this invented tradition is a part of the process of modernization, but also reveal how the particularistic conditions in China interact with the universal mechanism of modernity.
From this creative interpretation of the unlucky number, I gained new insight into the recent superstition surrounding the magical and mystical allure of the number of 8. Instead of being an ungrounded claim based on tenuous linkages between certain numbers and auspicious incidents, the popularization of lucky numbers is borne out of faddism and fetishism. Accordingly, instead of being overwhelmed by the uncontrollable unknown power, mobile phone users display their agency and autonomy in manipulating the arbitrary meanings of numbers, thus relieving their anxiety.
In South Korea, there's no such a thing as number selection fee. Korean mobile phone users more likely personalize their mobile phone numbers. Thus, the merits of luckiest number of 7 in Korea are not collectively adored or pursued, remaining no more than a lucky number. This is significant because more personal and diverse spaces are available when the digital resources are not mobilized and utilized by collective forces. Thus, many mobile phone users deliberately select numbers that are personally significant and coincide with their birthdays or marriage anniversaries.
Most of my Korean informants state that the appreciated mobile phone number is the one easy-to-remember. Whilst in Korea on an Asia Cultures Academy fellowship I began to observe some similarities between Chinese and Korean relationships to numbers and superstition. Both countries boast high mobile phone penetration rates and are centres for the manufacturing, production and exporting of global mobile technologies. Both countries, also, demonstrate particular modes of contextualising the mobile device into everyday life.
This sample study is not meant to be indicative of all Chinese or Korean experiences but, rather, a meditation on some of the ways in which tradition is used to localise and domesticate mobile technologies. You are writing a birthday card, and the nearest pen you can reach is the red ink pen. The receiving person opens up the card and instead of seeing a happy reaction, the birthday gal will most probably be in shock or offended. A long time ago the names of the deceased were written in red on registers, gravestones and plaques to ward off evil spirits, therefore writing someone's name in red ink is very bad luck. Korean Mandu are known to be healthy as they allow you to easily consume enough nutrients even if you just eat one, since the thin wrapper is filled with plenty of minced meat and fresh vegetables.
There are also more than one type of Korean dumplings, depending on the wrapper, the ingredients of the filling, the recipe, and the shape. For example, bibigo's 'Mandu', a modern reinterpretation of 'Mimandu', are in the shape of a sea cucumber, known as the ginseng of the sea, which used to be enjoyed in the Royal palace as a precious food. Bibigo's 'Hansum Mandu', which are larger and filled to the brim, were made with the motif of reviving dumplings that Koreans used to make and eat to pray for good fortune on the first full moon day of the New Year. In both cases, you can easily enjoy the authentic taste of Korea at home. Another deadly Korean superstition is writing a living person's name in red ink. Traditional Korean culture uses red to write the names of the dead and doing the opposite is a big no-no and considered very unlucky and potentially life threatening.
I wonder how many Korean's have tried killing their foes by repeatedly writing their name in red, unfortunately we couldn't find any statistics on the subject. If you're teaching English in Korea then we strongly discourage you from using a red pen at school. If you mistakenly write a student's name in red they may assume you want them dead. In the United States, this change in behavior results in a staggering loss of $800 million every time unlucky number 13 falls on a Friday.
This loss is due to extreme superstitions deterring people from their traditional behavior. For example, couples will often avoid marrying on this date and other U.S. residents may refrain from traveling. If you're a manager, you might find that you have uncharacteristically uncooperative staff and a loss of productivity on the 13th. There is no accepted proof that the number 13 is unlucky, but it remains a sign of bad luck due to traditional beliefs. For example, in The Last Supper, the 12 apostles were gathered around Jesus, thus there were 13 people around the table.
The meaning of numbers can be different across cultures. The thing that should be considered is that some numbers that are considered unlucky in some countries are lucky in other countries. Examples of Korean superstitions The number 4 is a symbol of bad luck. In elevators, the letter F indicates the fourth floor instead of the number 4. … It is bad luck to cut one's nails or toenails at night. The Japanese pronunciation of night and death are similar.
