Unlucky licence plate sells for US$130,000 in Hong Kong: report

Hong Kong (ANTARA News/afp) - A Hong Kong woman splashed out 130,000 US dollars for a car licence plate carrying "4444", despite the number's traditional links to death in Chinese culture, a report said Monday.

The bidder paid one million Hong Kong dollars in a government auction of 270 unusual licence plates on Sunday, the Chinese-language Apple Daily said.

The number four is often avoided by Chinese people because its pronunciation is similar to the word for "dead".

Some skyscrapers do not include floors that end with the number, such as 14th or fourth, as they are less likely to be rented.

However, car licence experts told Apple that four was a lucky number for people originating from Chaozhou, a city in the southern Guangdong province, as it sounds like the word for "water" in their dialect.

Water is a seen as a symbol for money in the traditional Chinese feng shui energy system.

The woman declined to talk to reporters after the auction, the report added. (*)