In Chinese 4 is badluck, but P4 ok?

September 3, 2009 3:49 PM

If my appartment building has gone through the trouble to leave out the number 4 from all numbered floors and numbered appartments, why did they leave in the parkade level 'P4'?

OK, my building has no 4th, 14th, 24th, 34th floor, and neither does it have any appartment numbers ending in 4 (ie: there's 501, 502, 503, 505, 506). Now I understand this, because in chinese the number 4 is apparently pronounced the same as 'death' and is considered extremely unlucky. My question is, why is there a P4? why didn't they skip it and go right to P5? This has been driving me bonkers for ten years.
(I asked two people at work who grew up in China and they had no idea other than maybe it doesn't matter cause you don't live there your car does. I'm not buying it...)
Anyone?

posted by imaswinger to society & culture (10 comments total)

Potentially, P4 was created after the building was completed, and designated by someone less superstitious?
posted by Tomorrowful at 3:52 PM on September 3

Maybe because when you pronounce the P in front of the 4 it sounds less deadly?
posted by PatoPata at 4:08 PM on September 3

Because no one lives on P4.
posted by wongcorgi at 5:42 PM on September 3 [1 favorite]

From Wikipedia - residence floor (in a multi-story building)
posted by wongcorgi at 5:44 PM on September 3

People decide whether they want to move into a particular apartment or not. If your parking space is assigned, that happens after you've already signed the lease or bought your unit and no one really cares that much. In other words: people may be unhappy about renting an apartment on the 4th floor and they go look someplace else; having a parking space on the 4th floor isn't going to make you break your lease and move out, and if it irks someone that seriously, they can just assign them another spot. Basically, there's a P4 because there's no business reason for there not to be.
posted by zachlipton at 6:33 PM on September 3

I'm not buying it..

Sure, why not. Having a 4 in your address is bad juju. Having a 4 in your parking spot is something you can deal with.
posted by Palamedes at 6:53 PM on September 3

I'd use a variation of Hanlon's razor to explain it: they just screwed up.

I wonder how long before people star using letters for floor and apartment numbers ... (unless there are also silly superstitions about letters than I am not aware of)
posted by TheyCallItPeace at 8:10 PM on September 3

How old is the building in relation to the garage? It would seem feasible to me that the original owners may have been superstitious against 4 and no parking, if the building is old enough to have been constructed in the glory days of public transit. Later sold, and cars are popular now, a garage is added to up rental price, and the new owner isn't Chinese and neither is the contractor. They don't care about the 4, but they certainly aren't going to go changing addresses and redoing elevator buttons.
posted by itsonreserve at 11:01 PM on September 3

Having a 4 in your address is bad juju. Having a 4 in your parking spot is something you can deal with.

This seems the most plausible to me. When I was living in China, my building didn't have a 4th or 14th floor, but if you looked in the crack between the elevator and the actual floor, you could see the builders labelled the floors according to standard numbering (I lived on the nominal 33rd floor, but the concrete below it was labeled "31" in chalk).
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:15 AM on September 4

I guess it's just that being a parking floor it didn't really matter. I'm just surprised the designer would take care of all the fours and then just drop the ball when it comes to parking. I guess I was hoping for some cool interesting reason. sigh, oh well!

thanx!

ps - the building is 15 years old, and was built all at once.
posted by imaswinger at 1:36 PM on September 4