Why Are Some Floors Missing in Buildings: The 4th and 13th Floors on Elevators

Have you ever noticed that in some large buildings, the elevator buttons jump straight from 3 to 5?

This is very common in southern China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, as well as Japan and South Korea. The reason is that the sound of "four" is similar to "death". In Chinese it's read as "sì", in Japanese "four" is read "shi", which is the same as "death", and Korean has this taboo too. So many hospitals, hotels, and residential buildings will skip the 4th floor directly, or call the 4th floor "3A"; some also skip 14 and 24 together. Some people buying houses would rather spend more money than have an address containing "4"; license plates and phone numbers with 4 also sell for much less.

In the West, it's another number: 13. Many hotels don't have a 13th floor, jumping directly from the 12th to the 14th, and some planes don't have a 13th row either. This custom is said to have religious and historical reasons, related to the Last Supper, where thirteen people sat at the table, one of whom was Judas. Friday the 13th is even considered an unlucky day by many people.

These two taboos, to this day, still affect prices and design. Some real estate projects in Hong Kong skip 4, 14, 24, 34; some buildings in the US rename the 13th floor as "14th floor", and then tenants feel safe moving in.

These missing floors are actually still built; it's just that the numbers on the buttons skip over them. You watch the elevator go from 3 to 5, and that middle floor might be right under your feet, but no one is willing to admit that it's there.

#Folklore #网络转载 #数字忌讳