[This is my Trail] 8.8.08 The Day Has Finally Arrived

[Rachelle]

The Chinese are still a little superstitious about numbers. Basically, 8 is good and 4 is bad. Apparently, 8 (八 ba in Chinese) is good because it sounds like 发 fa (of 发财 facai, which means "to get rich") , but 4 (四 si) is bad because it sounds like the word for death (死 si). I just learned why 8 is good today, although I've known for a long time that people pay extra to have lots of 8s in their license tag, phone number, etc. Since 8 is such lucky number, there have apparently been lots of marriages in 2008. Would I delay marriage for a year to wait for a luckier number?! I think not. Anyway, apparently there are issues with price gouging in the marriage industry because of this.

Most magical, though, is the Olympics. China couldn't have planned it any better if they'd tried. They are beginning tonight at 8:08pm on 8-8-08. Ok, so they might have planned at least the 8:08 part, but anyway. This morning, on 8-8-08, the elevator only stopped on the 8th, 18th, and 28th floors. How bizarre. Here's to China getting rich...

In case you missed this gem, which has been mocked constantly on China-related blogs as of late, I give you: the official Olympic cheer. Officially created by the Party Office of Spiritual Civilization Development and Guidance (GODPP)....yes, there is such a government office in China. Forbes.com has an awesome article about this cheer and Danwei has a China-fabulous video.
Step 1: Clap two times (while chanting 奥运, "Olympics")
Step 2: Hands in fists with thumbs up, arms extended upward (while chanting, 加油, "Let's go!")
Step 3: Clap two times (while chanting 中国, "China")
Step 4: Hands in fists, arms extended outward and upward (while chanting 加油, "Let's go!")

Also, if you want to learn some Chinese in honor of the Olympics, the Olympic slogan "One World, one Dream" is 同一个世界，同一个梦想 (Tong yi ge shi jie, tong yi ge meng xiang). However, as Jenny Zhu pointed out in her blog awhile back, perhaps what China needs to realize is that people have different dreams--and different cheers.

For more Olympics-related Chinese, check out ChinesePod's Olympics site, which has country names and all the sports names and vocabulary in English, Pinyin, and characters.

In other Opening Ceremony news (you all are getting up to watch it at 8:00am EST, right?!), the teams will not be entering in alphabetical order. Greece will enter first, as usual, but the other teams will enter based on number of strokes in the first character. Fun fun. Chinese makes everything more difficult. I think the US has 8 or 9 strokes, so we should be somewhere in the middle. Australia has 15, so they are not happy to be near the end. However, as someone whose last name begins with a "W," I never feel bad for any "A" that has to go last. Zambia is still at the end in Chinese, so they have no luck either way.

In other new about dates/numbers, yesterday was "Chinese Valentine's Day"--known as Qi Xi in Chinese. It occurs on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, which was Aug. 7th this year. Just a random non-Olympics factoid.

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Posted By Rachelle to This is my Trail at 8/07/2008 09:31:00 PM