Chinese and numbers

The Chinese have a funny thing with numbers. Hu Jintao is called No. 1. Phones and carplates should have No.8 or No.6 in it, as Chinese believe it brings more luck into their lives. Chinese pay a little extra for phonenumbers and carplates with these numbers 6 or 8 in it. When you buy flowers for your girlfriend, you should buy 11 flowers (I only love YOU or there is only 1 love in my life) or 99 flowers (9 is identical as endless or ‘forever’). And the number 4 is pronounced the same as ‘death’, so often they don’t have a 4th floor in buildings. In some regions in China, Chinese use even numbers to insult people. Numbers such as 500 or 250 represent half of 1.000 ; and nobody wants to be called ‘half’ of course, and it’s even worse if you’re ‘half’ (500 is half of 1.000) of a ‘half’ (250 is half of a half of 1.000). Believe me, this article counts 888 characters, lucky me !