迷信mí xìn

What do you see?What do you think?

幸运数字 xìng yùn shù zì

8 bā

发 / 發 fā

Unlucky numbers

• An elevator in a residential apartment building in Shanghai - floor numbers 4, 13 and 14 are missing.

What do you see?What do you think?

What do you want to know?

• 红色 / 紅色• 葫芦 / 葫蘆 gourd/ húlu

• 中国结 / 中國結• 如意 rúyì

葫芦 / 葫蘆 福禄 / 福祿 fúlù

如意 rúyì• 万事如意 /

萬事如意• Wànshìrúyì

中国结 / 中國結 Zhōngguójié

• Chinese knot is actually an ancient art of weaving and Chinese people have used knots as decorations since the Han Dynasty. Now people in China are still intrigued by the secrets and complicated beauty of traditional red knots.

• "Knot" In Chinese has the meanings of reunion, friendliness, warm, marriage etc, so the red Chinese knot has come to be the symbol of reunion, luck, harmony, and love.

• Gourd is the fruit of a kind of liana. When fresh and tender, it could be eaten as vegetable; when dried, it makes an ideal container of water or wine. Northern Chinese farmers have the habit of cutting a gourd in two to be used wine containers or ladles. Our ancestors fashioned the gourd into a wind instrument known as sheng, and the wayfarers loved to carry drugs in a gourd. This gave rise to the old platitude: “I don't know what he has got in his gourd.” Meaning somebody is wondering what's up somebody else's sleeves.

• Because the gourd liana is prolific in bronze mirrors from a Han tomb dating back to 3,000 years ago. This is a rare case in which gourds were used as burial objects.

• In some areas, men and women in love are still observing the Mid-Autumn Festival tradition to steal gourds from the fields with the desire to have as many children as possible after they get married.