Pick your number.
Every nation has its cherished numbers. Christianity has a very peculiar relationship to 13 as it was the number of guests at the last supper of Christ. Satanists hail the triple 6. Sport fans will associate 23 to a flying deity and the 10 to either a headbutting crane, samba dancing feet or a divine arm extension. Chinese despise the number 4 but love 8. The earlier is indeed sign of bad luck, whilst the second is about abundance and prosperity. It is interesting that from an arithmetical perspective twice the evil equals happiness...
Every nation has its cherished numbers. Christianity has a very peculiar relationship to 13 as it was the number of guests at the last supper of Christ. Satanists hail the triple 6. Sport fans will associate 23 to a flying deity and the 10 to either a headbutting crane, samba dancing feet or a divine arm extension. Chinese despise the number 4 but love 8. The earlier is indeed sign of bad luck, whilst the second is about abundance and prosperity. It is interesting that from an arithmetical perspective twice the evil equals happiness...
Photo by ClaudeWant some funny implications of those believes? In Europe, hotels will never have a room 13 or a 13th floor to avoid any disturbance amongst the most pious customers. In Chinese countries (i.e. countries where the Chinese diaspora has a strong influence like Singapore, Taiwan, etc.) a lift would bring you straight from the 3rd to the 5th floor. No intermediary stop. And guess what? When are the Beijing Olympic Games starting? On August 8th, 08.08.08! Will they push that principle to its very limit and ignite the torch at 08:08 pm, I can only assume so.
My own 8.
Recently, I have been tagged by
- make my career evolve. First it led me to resign from my previous role as an Sr. Account Director in a web-agency by nourrishing my professional frustrations, and then it fulfilled my personal ambitions. I was indeed recruited for my current job thanks to a headhunter who found my profile on... Facebook.
- keep in touch with friends on the other side of the world, of the Channel or even of the city. RSS feeds are simply one of the greatest inventions to save time... Well yes, I am busy because of point 1.
- be live on a national TV channel in prime time for 15 minutes. A TV Producer found this blog and liked my thoughts on the Entente Cordiale and asked me pay him a visit on Sky News.
- share my "art". One of my flickr pictures has been selected to be published in a photo book
to be released in September
- keep track of my running performances in a constant effort to regain my former fitness.
- bring virtuality into reality by meeting people from very diverse horizons
- watch reality becoming an astonishing virtuality through fantastic initiatives like wefeelfine.org by Jonathan Harris.
- enrich my marketing classes with videos in a vain effort to shine in front of final year business school students.
Apparently the Chinese are right, 8 is quite fulfilling... What do you think? What are your 8 digital achievments?
I have a weird fear of the number 8... possibly because it's so fat. I don't like round numbers, such as 8 and 6, but I love skinny numbers, like 7 and 1. Odd, huh?
ReplyDeleteWell you know what people in English countries say about numbers, half of them are odds. The other are even:)
ReplyDeletePersonaly I love 6 and 7. Maybe because I am born on 6.7.76
Well happy belated birthday! And thanks for doing the chain - I really enjoyed the bit of culture with the numbers...
ReplyDeleteThanks Laurence... It is a pleasure.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the article itself, I always like to share something. Cultural differences are in essence a great wealth, but they need to be exposed to reveal their value. That is how I define the editorial backbone of this blog: sharing to enrich the discussion.
Hope to see you soon.
I used to work for Microsoft. We spent a fortune to buy a phone number in China that was full of 8's.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about the Olympic start date. 8 August 82 was my first day in the US Marine Corps, 8 8 82. Got out alive 8 years later. I suppose that was lucky.