Traditional Chinese society is rife with superstitious beliefs. Throughout most of the twentieth century, first the Nationalist government, and then the Communist government attempted to eradicate superstitious practices in China in an effort to modernize the country. These efforts have proven unsuccessful, and today people still go to fortune tellers to find a good date to get married or have a baby, still believe in lucky and unlucky numbers and still hang protective talismans in their homes and cars. These old-fashioned beliefs allow Chinese people to maintain some sense of control over their fates as the nation undergoes whirlwind social and economic upheaval.

Many Chinese superstitions are based on homophones in the Chinese language. Chinese makes use of relatively few syllable sounds in the construction of words. This results in part from the tonal nature of the language; if pitch contour contributes to the meaning of a sound, then not as many syllables are needed to communicate meaning. In Chinese, then, many unrelated concepts are expressed with the same syllable sound. Superstitious beliefs arise when those unrelated concepts are treated as if they were related.

One important homophone in Chinese superstition is the syllable “dao,” which means both “to arrive” and “upside down.” For this reason, one will often find the character for good fortune (“fu”) hanging upside down in homes celebrating a wedding or during the Chinese New Year. The idea is that this upside down (“dao”) talisman will cause good fortune to arrive (“dao”) in the course of the marriage or in the coming year.

For a similar reason, the bat is considered an emblem of good fortune in China. The word for bat, “bian fu,” contains the same sound as good fortune, “fu.” This homophonic connection makes bats a common theme in Chinese folk art. Many homes feature cut paper pictures or other depictions of bats, intended to attract good fortune.

Not all such homophonic correlations relate to good fortune. In fact, the number four, “si,” is considered highly unlucky due to its homophonic relationship to the word death, “si.” For this reason, many buildings in China do not include any floor numbers ending in four, and some airlines do not include such numbers in their seating.

The luckiest Chinese number is eight, or “ba,” which corresponds to the word for “to accumulate wealth,” also pronounced as “ba.” The perceived auspicious nature of this number led Chinese authorities to choose August 8, 2008 as the opening day for the Beijing Olympics. The Christian Science Monitor quotes Xie Xueluan, a sociologist at Beijing University, “It’s not that the government believes this, but it had to choose a date, so why not respect the people’s feelings?”

Recent events have, however, brought the luckiness of the number eight into question. A huge snowfall brought New Year’s travel to a standstill on January 25 of this year. The digits of the date, 1-25, add up to eight. The outbreak of protests against Chinese rule in Tibet on March 14 also fell on a date that adds up to eight. Finally, the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province struck on May 12, once again adding up to eight. Natural disasters such as these have historically been considered to auger the end of a dynasty’s rule, demonstrating that the ruling family had lost the mandate of heaven. While the Chinese government does not appear to be on its last legs, some in China have found their faith in the number eight’s good luck shaken by these events.

Even in today’s world of high-tech gadgets and improving education, superstition remains a strong element of Chinese culture. This results in part from the importance of luck in Chinese tradition and in modern Chinese life. To thrive in the dynastic era, a farming family needed good weather, a scholar’s family needed good exam scores and a royal family needed to survive often treacherous court intrigues. Good luck tokens seemed a necessary precaution under such circumstances. Today in China, farmers still need good weather, students still require some luck to do well on the demanding high school and college entrance exams, and fortunes are made and lost in a heartbeat in the world of Chinese business. With so much riding on good fortune, it is no wonder that superstitious beliefs continue to color Chinese culture to this day.

Source
Ford, Peter. “Superstitions Fly as Chinese Reel from a Bad (Luck) Year.” The Christian Science Monitor. June 20, 2008. http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0621/p01s01-woap.html.