We’re on the eve of the lunar New Year, the most celebrated holiday in China. All week long your kids will be learning about various New Year traditions in their Chinese classrooms—this could and should make for interesting conversation at the dinner table this week, so be sure you ask.
One of the things your kids will learn this week is a whole slew of auspicious four-character phrases that are plastered all over China (and CAIS) at this time of year. People regularly sign their New Year cards (or in recent years, text messages) with these lucky four-word clichés, and in China you can hear people on the streets greeting each other rhythmically: 万事如意 wàn shì rú yì (may all things go your way) 心想事成 xīn xiăng shì chéng (may you realize your heart’s desires) 大吉大利 dà jí dà lì (may you enjoy good fortune and great benefit), 年年有余 nián nián yŏu yú (may you enjoy abundance every year) and so on. These sayings all express the hope that the coming new year will bring good fortune. But by far the most popular phrase—one with which many CAIS parents may be familiar—is 恭喜发财 gōng xĭ fā cái (“wishing you prosperity”, or more literally, “congratulations, get rich!”). In Cantonese, this is pronounced something like gong hay fat choy (I won’t even try to render the tones—I only understand a little Cantonese, just what I’ve picked up since moving to San Francisco in 2010). This phrase is so popular that it has become practically synonymous with “Happy New Year!” So if you are not a Mandarin speaker (and 90% of CAIS parents are not) and you want to learn just one Chinese phrase for the New Year, gōng xĭ fā cái is your best bet. In fact, there is a CAIS video that teaches you how to say it—click here.
Now this is where things really become interesting. You have probably heard that the number eight is auspicious in Chinese culture. You may have been in on a conversation with other CAIS parents, and someone said, “Hey, can you believe the address on the new CAIS middle school site, 888? How lucky is that?!” You perhaps nodded your head, knowingly, and said something like, “I know, right?!” Maybe you really do know why eight is so lucky. Maybe you just know that eight is supposedly lucky, but you are not sure why. And maybe, you have no idea what the deal is with eight. So here’s the deal.
Numbers in China are lucky (or unlucky) because of what they sound like. Nine (九 jiŭ) has the same pronunciation as 久 which means “a long time,” synonymous with longevity——very lucky. Four (四sì) sounds almost identical to 死 sĭ which means “death”—very unlucky. Many buildings in China have no fourth floor, and mobile phone numbers with the number four in them are very unpopular, and thus inexpensive (people must buy their mobile numbers in China). On April 4 (4/4), 2004, I turned 44 years old in Beijing—my friends were all very protective of me that year. So what, you ask, does this have to do with the lunar New Year? Prosperity (发财 fā cái as in gōng xĭ fā cái!) is sometimes rendered as just fā 发. In some dialects in parts of southern China, the number eight (八 bā in Mandarin) sounds very similar to fā. In other words, if we were walking down the road in many parts of southern China and someone cried, “prosperity!” (in their local dialect, of course), it would sound almost identical to a cry of “eight!” What this means is that “eight” is the luckiest number of all, for it sounds just like prosperity. Mobile phone numbers in China are increasingly more expensive as they have more eights in them. The opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing started at 8:08 p.m. on August 8 (8/8). And so on. One eight is great. Two is even better. And three eights? Over the moon! Which is why I almost jumped out of my skin when I first toured the future CAIS middle school site and gazed up at the address on the wall—888. Luck or fate?
So, as we prepare for the New Year, and lay plans for our new middle school at 888 Turk Street, I want to wish everyone 恭喜发财 gōng xĭ fā cái!