8-8-2008 - Why so Many Eights?

The number eight holds a special place in China as being the luckiest number. This is because the pronunciation of "eight" （八 ba) sounds like "fa" (发) which is short for "facai" （发财）which means to get rich. So phone numbers with lots of eights in them and other things like license plates with lots of eights are valuable commodities.

Ironically 08' doesn't seem to be staying true to this superstition considering all the unlucky events to have happened so far. Below I've translated an interesting letter that's being passed around. Months in China (January, February etc) are denoted by their sequence in the twelve month calendar. Instead of having a name like "January" the first month of the year is translated literally as "1 Month," (一月yi yue) February is "2 month"(二月er yue) etc. So August is "ba yue," month eight, also the lucky number. This is why the Olympics are on August 8, 2008 - a super lucky date.

1月25日,雪灾=天灾
3月14日,藏独=人祸
5月12日,地震=地灾
1+2+5=08
3+1+4=08
5+1+2=08
08年08月08日奥运会
巧合？
天哪 怎么就这么巧合

01, 25, Snow storm = Climate disaster ("climate" and "heaven" are the same in Chinese 天 tian)
03, 14, Tibetan independence = man-made disaster
05, 12, Earthquake = an earth (geological) disaster

1+2+5 = 8
3+1+4 = 8
5+1+2 = 8
08, 08, 08 is the Olympics?
Coincidence?
Heavens, how can there be this much of a coincidence?

Ooooo, scary! The author forgot to mention that May 12, 2008 is exactly 88 days before the Olympics, at least according to an article I saw, I haven't bothered to calculate it.

I'm not superstitous, but I think it's a pretty interesting coincidence.