What's in a number? No great fortune

Last Thursday, China Daily reported a bizarre story about the owner of a cheap automobile who "spent a fortune on a lucky license plate" in Foshan, Guangdong province.

The man bought the license plate with the number of 88888 for his 40,000-yuan ($5,882) compact car. The report did not reveal how much the man paid for the plate but it was estimated at more than 200,000 yuan ($29,412), according to local sources.

Figure eight, pronounced as "ba" in Chinese, is believed to be a lucky number because it is homophonic to the Chinese character Fa, which means getting rich. Five eights definitely symbolize tons of wealth.