男友太凶猛1v1高h,大地资源在线资源免费观看 ,人妻少妇精品视频二区,极度sm残忍bdsm变态

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Lifestyle
Home / Lifestyle / News

Symbols, superstition and playing the numbers game

China Daily | Updated: 2013-07-04 17:05

Symbols, superstition and playing the numbers game

A bouquet of 999 roses displayed at a flower shop attracts a passerby's attention. Wang Jiankang/For China Daily

At the other end of the spectrum is the number four, a homonym for "death". Some Chinese refuse to purchase a cell phone number with the digit, calling it "taboo". Also, many buildings in Hong Kong and the mainland do not designate a fourth floor so that the fifth floor immediately follows the third, as shown on elevator buttons.

Why is Chinese culture so infused with what seems to be numerical superstition? And what has kept these beliefs strong in modern times?

"It's part of the Chinese people's culture to use symbols to represent themselves," says Lee Cheuk-Yin, head of the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore and a specialist in Chinese history and traditional culture. "They like to use symbols, because Chinese culture is more conservative and implicit."

A principle of this symbolism, Lee says, is the use of punning a play on words based on the similar pronunciation of different characters. This also explains, he says, why the Chinese consider fish and bats auspicious animals. "Fish" is a homonym for "abundance" in Mandarin, while "bat" sounds like "good fortune".

Using this principle, the Chinese have also come up with auspicious number combinations. Some of the most popular, according to a paper by Chen Rudong, a professor at Peking University's Department of Communication Studies, are: 168 (which sounds like "to always be rich"), 518 ("I shall be rich") and 666 ("everything will remain well").

These beliefs end up being passed on for generations since people develop an emotional attachment to symbols.

"Encountering a symbol, whether it's a number or a word or a picture, is a bit like encountering the thing itself, leading to a bit of ambiguity in the brain," says Matthew Hutson, author of The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy and Sane.

Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
主站蜘蛛池模板: 石家庄市| 宁夏| 绥中县| 得荣县| 来安县| 广州市| 天台县| 蒙城县| 宜城市| 惠州市| 辰溪县| 平昌县| 巴南区| 太白县| 陕西省| 巴青县| 和硕县| 昌都县| 若尔盖县| 扶余县| 静安区| 达拉特旗| 英超| 镇雄县| 华容县| 塔河县| 连南| 漾濞| 佛冈县| 逊克县| 华池县| 辰溪县| 虎林市| 阿城市| 彭山县| 仁化县| 巩留县| 咸丰县| 全椒县| 剑阁县| 柳河县|