Chinese who believe in Feng Shui are extremely superstitious about the figures they choose as their telephone number, house number, car number and the like. The categorization of some numbers as lucky and some as unlucky depends on the way they sound when spoken. For instance, in western numbers ‘eleven’ sounds like ‘heaven’ or number ‘eight’ sounds like ‘weight’ or number ‘one’ sounds like ‘son’.

Numbers considered unlucky by the Chinese:

Number 4 (pronounced as Sei) is known to be a bad number because in Cantonese it sounds like the word ‘death’. Number 13 is unlucky because it adds up to 4. Apart from this, number 24 and 104 are also unlucky for the same reason.

Numbers considered lucky

Numbers such as 108, 168, 99, 88, 84, 80, 68, 54, 48, 38, 28, 18, 8, are all good numbers. The main reason why 8 is lucky because if you pronounce the word (patt) it sounds like "faat" which denotes "prosperity and abundance"

Consequences of some lucky numbers and combinations:

• 289: Long-term prosperity

• 5: myself, me

• 518: I will flourish

• 5189: I will flourish for a very long time

• 516289: I will tread a long, smooth wealthy road

• 5918: I will prosper soon

• 6: smooth and easy

• 7: together

• 8: prosperity or sudden fortune

The cure

If you have a house or businesses with 4 or 13, then just draw a circle around that number. The circle is tremendously powerful and captures the ill-fated effects of the negative number. There are two ways of doing it, one way is to go to the local hardware store and find a ceramic door number that can be customized with a circle. However, if you cannot afford to shelve out too much money then a simpler method is to simply go out and make a circle around the number. Also note, if you live or work at a place that has an unlucky number but is outside of China, consider how that number sounds in the native language of that particular country.

How seriously should one take numbers? If you’re still looking for a house, office or car number then make sure you comply with the norms set by fengshui. However, if you already have bought one with number 4 or 13, don’t worry too much, just use the cure provided above or consider changing the number to a name like "rose cottage" "your company name" etc.