CTV.ca | Auspicious triple-eight date portends good luck

Fri. Aug. 8 2008 7:08 PM ET

Auspicious triple-eight date portends good luck

CTV.ca News Staff

A man wears a hat with the shape of the 'Bird's Nest' and glasses marking the date of the opening ceremony outside the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. (AP / Charlie Riedel)

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Fireworks explode over the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Beijing, China on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008. (The Canadian Press / Jonathan Hayward)

Judging by the jaw-dropping Olympic opening ceremony on Friday, the Beijing planning committee has left nothing to chance. The festivities kicked off at exactly 8:08 p.m., Beijing local time, on the eighth day of the eighth month, of the year 2008.

"They were even more precise," said Wenren Jiang, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. "They are saying it was actually the eighth second of the eighth minute after eight' o'clock. But I didn't follow that closely," Jiang told CTV Newsnet on Friday.

Jiang said the Chinese people go "very far" to make numbers work for them.

In Chinese tradition, the number eight is synonymous with fortune, because when it's said aloud, it sounds like the Cantonese word for "wealth" or "prosper."

The numbers six and four are also considered lucky. According to the Chinese lunar calendar, August 8 also lands on the 26th day of the 6th month -- more sixes and eights -- and it's probably another reason why the Beijing Olympic planning committee chose the date to showcase its city on the world stage.

The date is so popular in Beijing that a reported 16,400 couples chose Friday to get hitched, roughly four times as many as last year on the same day.

But the triple-eight bug isn't exclusive to China. Here at home, even Canadians have been influenced by the superstition. More couples than normal have chosen it for their big day.

"We have six weddings, and that's quite unusual for a Friday," Elana Lancit, a planner at the Sweet Beginnings event consultation agency in Vancouver, told CTV British Columbia Thursday.

Amy Lo, a Vancouver bride of Chinese heritage, admits that even she's gotten caught up in the lore.

"When (my fiancé) proposed, he chose 08/08/08 because he thought it would be nice for my family," Lo told CTV British Columbia. She and her fiancé have been together for eight years. "So isn't that funny? Everything kind of just matches."

One Toronto area real-estate agent said the numbers eight, six and four in an address can be a real deal-clincher for some homebuyers of Chinese origin.

"When a customer sees a home, the numbers can make a big first impression," said Helena Tam, a realtor for Homelife/Golden East Realty Inc. in Markham, Ont.

The higher value placed on personal items with eight doesn't stop at addresses, the same goes for licence plates and telephone numbers.

Back in 2003, Sichuan Airlines bought a telephone number comprised solely of eights at auction for more than US$300,000. In one Chinese town, a licence plate sold for US$270,000 because of its numerology.

Jiang's licence plate contains more than one fortuitous number, and he didn't have to pay a dime for it. "I just got lucky," Jiang said.

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