You may have seen an elevator where the fourth floor is marked “F,” or a building with no fourth floor at all. Conversely, one person treasures 7 as a lucky number, while another’s face brightens at the sight of 8. The intriguing thing is that the same number can feel quite different from country to country and culture to culture. Why is that?
The reason 4 is sometimes avoided in East Asia lies in “sound.” In Korean, Chinese, Japanese and more, the sound of the number four resembles the sound of the word meaning “death.” So hospitals and buildings sometimes avoid labelling a fourth floor. Conversely, 8 sounds close to the words for “growing wealth” in Chinese-speaking regions, and so is greatly loved as a number of riches and prosperity — which is why phone numbers and dates containing 8 are sought after. The meaning lodged in a number grew, in other words, from a “resemblance of sound.”
The regard for 7 as a lucky number in the West has a different grain. Like the seven days of the week or the seven colours of the rainbow, 7 has long been spoken of as a number of “completeness” and the sacred. Meanwhile, the unease around 13 is passed down entangled with stories from religion and legend. As you can see, whether a number is auspicious or not is built up, layer upon layer, from a culture’s language, myths, and historical events.
So there is something to state honestly here. There is no universal correct answer to a “lucky number.” Both the wish to avoid 4 and the welcome given to 8 are less “the power of the number itself” than an agreement and association people have long shared. That is why one culture’s ominous number is unremarkable, or even beloved, in another. A number is not, in itself, lucky or unlucky — we are the ones who have dressed it in a story.
Seen that way, a lucky number is not a charm that “sets my fortune” but more a fond story that people’s hearts and cultures have carved into numbers. If you have a number you treasure, simply enjoy the reassurance it gives, lightly. As always in FortuneLeaf, this is offered not as a fixed fate but as one small pleasure of looking together at the world’s colourful imagination.