The Unluckiest Number in the East

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If you live in the West and you still believe in superstitious ideas, then chances are you believe that the number 13 is an unlucky number. For an unconfirmed reason, many people take the number 13 to be an unlucky number. It's even unluckier when the 13th day of the month coincides with a Friday, thus dubbed a Friday the 13th.

In some other cultures, however, some other number is even way unluckier. I'm talking about the number 13, which is particularly unlucky in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese cultures. If you go to a building with a Chinese owner, do notice that there is no 4th floor around. You can directly go to the 5th floor from the 3rd floor, with the latter having a pretty high ceiling.

The reason for this association is not much of a secret. The number 4 is homophonous to the word death in these languages. Some numbers, like 14, is also similarly unlucky because it sounds like want to die.

What happens when you get a large part of East Asia considering the number as unlucky? Many companies that get shipped to this region avoid including the number in their product lines. Nokia is a good example. It has never had a model number with a 4 in it. PDAs, Canon cameras, and similar items also do not have a number 4 in them. In Hong Kong, some buildings go as far as removing all floors without a 4 in it. So sometimes a building with a 50th floor only really has about 36 physical floors.

If you're a product manager, don't even dare to include number 4 in your product names if you are going to sell them in this region. Products with a number 4 are a sure-fire way to make it flop. The 144 of Alfa Romeo turned out to be a big flop before the company decided to change the product number.

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