13 Is No Match for 888888
Call it superstition if you want to, but this is some expensive superstition.
Insofar as we can determine, the partiality for number eight first started in the Hong Kong ¨C Canton area. In the local dialect there, the word for eight, ba, pronounces very similarly to the word fa, meaning ¡°to expand,¡± ¡°to grow¡± or ¡°to get rich¡±, and the commercial culture there turned the number into a much sought-after commodity.
Recently, in a move aimed at what was perceived as fair business practice, a telephone company in Guangdong Province offered up for auction a host of cell-phone numbers that contain the lucky 8¡¯s.
The hottest item was one with "888888" in it. Each bid for this number cot bidders £¤5,000 yuan, and in the end it went to a man in his 50s, who later said that he was purchasing it on behalf of his boss. The price tag? £¤285,000. That¡¯s ten-years-worth of wage for an average worker.
And obviously, 13 was not considered a problem. Not only the most above-mentioned most expensive number was the 13th to go at the auction but also it was, in its completion, ¡°13332888888¡±.
Altogether 38 numbers were sold that day, for a total price of £¤1,119,000.
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