August 19, 2003

"Lucky" Chinese phone number has a high price

According to this BBC story, many Chinese people consider the number eight to be lucky, because in Cantonese, it sounds like the word for "get rich." That explains why the telephone number 8888 8888 fetched 2.33m yuan ($280,000) at a special telecom auction yesterday in the province of Sichuan. The winner: a Chinese airline:

"An eight-digit number containing only the number eight is considered especially auspicious. 'Everyone at the company believes the number was worth the price we paid,' Xing Bing, a spokesperson for Sichuan Airlines, told the Associated Press news agency. The company is said to be planning to use the number for a 24-hour customer hotline.

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