We all know the irrational fear of the number 13, something that even has its own word: triscaidekaphobia. This is a fairly common fear in many countries and gives rise to curious examples. One of the best known is that in many buildings, you go directly from the 12th to the 14th floor. Another curious example is linked to public transport in Madrid: there is no line 13 in the bus service.
Something similar to what happens with the irrational fear of the number 13 is happening in many Asian countries with the number four. Apparently, tetraphobia or fear of the number four can be caused by the fact that the word used for the number four in languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese or Korean (among others) is very similar to word used to mean “death”. “.
Tetraphobia is very common in different Asian countries
Considering the above, it is common for many Asian countries to avoid using the number four. As with the case of number 13 that we have already mentioned, it is not uncommon to find examples in buildings in which there is no floor number four. This also happens with street numbers: many omit the number four and go straight to five.
Another curious example is its use in phone number prefix: In Hong Kong, we were studying the possibility of launching a new series of telephone numbers with the prefix four which would make it possible to put 5.6 million telephone numbers into circulation. Although the measure raised many doubts, new telephone numbers starting with four were finally made available to users.
The importance of superstitions in many Asian countries is so great that tetraphobia has driven a well-known Chinese manufacturer of smart phones to skip number four. We are talking about OnePlus, which, when it came to naming the successor to the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T, decided to call it directly OnePlus 5: there was never a OnePlus 4.
The manufacturer’s decision generated some confusion at the time and examples of this can be found in the OnePlus community forums, where we find several messages from users of the brand asking why there is no One Plus 4.
There omission of the number four It is more common in buildings, elevators and streets, so the fact that a company avoids using this number on a cell phone is something that attracts attention.
Although other Asian companies offer devices with the number four in their name, there are also examples similar to OnePlus. This is the case of OPPO, which after the OPPO Find X3 Pro directly presented the OPPO Find X5 Pro.
At this point, this makes a lot of sense given the importance of superstitions in Asia, as this could attract many potential buyers. They opted for a competing mobile for fear of the number four.
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