Page "Numbers in Chinese culture" Paragraph 27
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Number 4 ( 四 ; accounting 肆 ; pinyin sì ) is considered an unlucky number in Chinese because it is nearly homophonous to the word " death " ( 死 pinyin sǐ ).
Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the " 4 ": e. g. Nokia cell phones ( there is no series beginning with a 4 ), Palm PDAs, Canon PowerShot G's series ( after G3 goes G5 ), etc.
( Compare with the Western practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.
) In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings omit all floor numbers with " 4 ", e. g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40 – 49 floors, in addition to not having a 13th floor.
Singaporean public transport operator SBS Transit has omitted the number plates for some of its buses whose numbers end with ' 4 ' due to this, so if a bus is registered as SBS *** 3 *, SBS *** 4 * will be omitted and the next bus to be registered will be SBS *** 5 *.
Note that this only applies to certain buses and not others and that the final asterisk is a checksum letter and not a number.
Another Singaporean public transport operator SMRT has omitted the ' 4 ' as the first two digit of the serial number of the train car for ( North South and East West ) Lines as well as the SMRT Buses NightRider services.
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