爲啥中國人這麼喜歡用數字?

As a newly minted Beijinger, there were certain things my brain quickly scrambled to make room for: the exact time I needed to leave home in the mornings to avoid being squashed into human dumpling filling on the rush-hour subway ride; the location of the best spots for mala xiang guo (a stir-fried version of hot pot); and to never, ever attempt eating a soup dumpling by putting it straight into you. mouth (poke and slurp, people!).

作爲一名新北京人，總有些東西讓我腦子忙不迭地爲其騰地方：早上幾點出門，以免被裹入地鐵高峯期的人流中；享用麻辣香鍋的最佳去處；絕不能嘗試直接把湯餃塞進嘴裏（一定要戳開吃）……

One task, though, seemed impossible: remembering my QQ number. As the only foreign employee in my department, I was also clearly the only one with this problem. My Chinese co-workers had no difficulty rattling off their own 10-digit, or in some cases nine-digit, IDs. If you asked me what my QQ ID was, after more than 104 weeks of living in China and using this messaging service, I would not be able to tell you.

但有件事似乎是不可能完成的任務：記住我的QQ號。作爲所在部門的唯一外國員工，我顯然也是唯一受困於該問題的人。我的中國同事都能輕鬆背出自己10位或9位的QQ號。如果你問我我的QQ號是多少，在中國生活並使用該服務104周後，我還是記不住。

I once asked the British guy working in the office next to ours if he remembered his. He did not. Neither could my two American friends. “What do those numbers mean?” we’d whined to each other. “There’s no order of any kind to them. Why not just use letters?!”

我曾經問隔壁辦公室的一位英國人能否記住自己的QQ號，他也不能。我的兩位美國朋友也不能。“這些數字有什麼含義？”我們相互抱怨，“這些數字沒有任何規律，爲什麼不用字母呢？”

I had been tempted to place the blame squarely on our collective terrible memories but turns out, there was possibly more to this.

我忍不住將此歸咎於我們的記憶力都很糟糕，但其實還有其他原因。

None of the locals we’d asked seemed to find anything unusual about remembering not only long strings of QQ digits, but also various other sets of numbers in other areas of their everyday lives. They turned up in website domain names. They were part of internet slang. Certain numbers assumed significance in cultural beliefs: some were auspicious; others were to be fled from at all cost. It seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers, much more so than in other countries and cultures.

我們問過的本地人中，似乎沒人覺得記住長長的QQ號和日常生活中的各種其他數字有什麼非同尋常的。它們既出現在網站域名中，也是網絡俚語的一部分。特定數字在中國文化信仰中被賦予重要含義：一些被認爲吉祥，一些令人唯恐避之不及。與其他國家和文化相比，在中國生活似乎經常遭到數字“轟炸”。

“I’ve heard the train fares on the CTrip website are kinda high,” my Sichuanese roommate told me, back when I first moved here, as we discussed my Chinese New Year travel plans. “Why don’t you try 12306?”

我剛到中國時，我的四川室友與我討論春節出行計劃時說：“聽說攜程網的火車票有點貴， 爲什麼不試試12306？”

“Um. Is that a helpline number?” I’d asked. Turns out, no, it wasn’t a helpline. is China Rail’s official website and app. You know, just like email service websites and .

我問道：“哦，那是熱線電話嗎？”然而並不是。是中國鐵路官網，此外還有一個應用程序，就像中國還有和等電子郵件服務。

Turns out the reason was likely the same as the one behind every one of my life choices: it involved the least effort.

而使用數字的原因就和我生活中諸多選擇的原因一樣：因爲省事。

As Frankie Huang, a writer based in Shanghai, told me over email, numbers are far easier to type for purposes like websites’ names, as compared to pinyin.

上海作家弗蘭姬·黃在郵件中告訴我，進行輸入網址等類似的操作時，數字遠比拼音更容易在電腦上輸入。

“Not everyone in China has perfect grasp of pinyin. If websites have pinyin names, it might actually be difficult for some people to figure out which letters to write,” she said. A string of numbers is easier to commit to memory than words in a foreign language.

“在中國，並非所有人都精通拼音。如果網址是拼音，一些人會不知道該用哪個字母。”一串數字比外語字母更好記。

Unlike the QQ IDs, the digits in a website name usually aren’t random. For instance, is the website address of Chinese internet company NetEase. It’s a throwback to the days of dial-up, when customers had to enter 163 to go online. The phone companies China Mobile and China Unicom simply re-appropriated their well-known customer service numbers as domain names, and , respectively.

與QQ號不同，中國網站域名中的數字通常並非隨機。例如，是中國互聯網公司網易的網址，在撥號上網時代，用戶需要輸入163來上網。中國移動和中國聯通分別將其衆所周知的客服熱線號碼當成域名：和。

This is also where homophones get involved. Among e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba’s various platforms is , with the numbers pronounced ‘ee-lio-ba-ba’ in Mandarin.

一些數字名稱還與諧音有關。電子商務巨頭阿里巴巴的網址是，讀來與“阿里巴巴”諧音。

You can order your McMuffin online by typing because ‘517’ in Mandarin is ‘wu yi qi’. Almost like ‘wo yao chuh’ or ‘I want to eat’. Website sounds awfully close to ‘I want a job’. All Chinese digits are monosyllabic, making them easier to remember.

你可以輸入網址點一份麥當勞的麥滿分，在普通話中，517與“我要吃”諧音。求職網站51job聽起來很接近“我要job（工作）”。所有中國數字都是單音節，因而更容易被記住。

It’s often something tourists might notice too. On my way up to an apartment, I noticed the lift panel had no fourth floor. There was 1, there was 2 and then there were 3A and 3B. The reason is that the pronunciation of the word ‘four’ in Mandarin sounds way too close for comfort to the word for ‘death’. My real estate agent informed me, that often, apartments numbered 4 or 44 tended to be rented out to foreigners.

連外國遊客都能注意到中國人對數字的迷戀。有次我去一個公寓，發現電梯按鈕沒有第四層。有第一層、第二層、3A層和3B層。這是因爲在普通話中，“4”的發音和“死”實在太像了。房屋中介提醒我說，門牌號含有4和44的公寓常常租給外國人。

Number 8, on the other hand, is the luckiest, as it sounds like the Mandarin word for prosperity. Car number plates with multiple 8’s have likely been paid a fortune for by their owners.

而“8”則是最幸運的數字，因爲它聽起來像“發”。含有幾個“8”的車牌往往價錢很高。

So 748 is telling someone to go to hell, 555 basically means a crying emoji, 233 means you’re laughing, and 520 is ‘I love you’. And if you wanted to really kick it up a few notches, there’s 2010000, which means ‘I love you for 10,000 years’. How’s that for your Valentine’s Day Instagram hashtag?

例如，748是讓別人“去死吧”，555是大哭表情，233意思是你在大笑，520是“我愛你”，如果你覺得這還不夠，不妨使用2010000，意思是“愛你一萬年”。馬上到來的情人節，在Ins上用這個數字標籤不錯吧？