I’m at a hotel for a couple of days worth of meetings and, as I whizzed up to the 15th floor where my room is located, I couldn’t help feeling that the ride as taking less time than I thought it should…then I was staring at the changing numbers on the display and we went from 12 to 15 awfully quickly….because both 13 and 14 were missing….so was 4.
Right!
I’m in Richmond.
The number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese because it’s pronunciation is very similar to that of the word “death”. Because of this, elevators in Asian neighborhoods often skip the 4th floor. And, since westerners seem to think that the number 13 is also unlucky, you will find no floors that contain the number 4 and no 13th floor. (I find it amusing that my government office has a 13th floor and that I work on it).
Newer buildings are seeing these numbers return though, and missing floor numbers in Vancouver condo and office towers will soon be a thing of the past. The city is cracking down on developers that leave out floor numbers considered unlucky and every new building will have all their floors and unlucky numbers will not be skipped for superstitious reasons.
And that’s a good thing, because it’s a danger to firefighters and paramedics who may have to use stairs to access victims, and who may be counting as they climb rather than looking at numbers on the wall.
“The problem here is everyone has grown up with numbers that go in sequence. Under stress, emergency responders have a chance of making mistakes. Under pressure, you will simply count, because that is what you have grown up your entire life. The moment you start second-guessing yourself and start asking is that the fourth, fifth or sixth floors, it gets very confusing.” (Vancouver Sun)
Personally I find it confusing when numbers are missing in a sequence, and kind of silly.
(56/365)