Originally Posted by fatfoo

In Chinese culture, certain numbers are believed by some to be auspicious.

Number 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures because it is nearly homophonous to the word "death" (死 pinyin sǐ). Due to that, many numbered product lines skip the "4": e.g. Nokia cell phones (there is no series beginning with a 4), Palm PDAs, Canon PowerShot G's series (after G3 goes G5), etc. In East Asia, some buildings do not have a 4th floor. (Compare with the American practice of some buildings not having a 13th floor because 13 is considered unlucky.) In Hong Kong, some high-rise residential buildings miss ALL floor numbers with "4", e.g. 4, 14, 24, 34 and all 40-49 floors. As a result, a building whose highest floor is number 50 may actually have only 36 physical floors.