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CHONGQING

Complaint over unlucky ID number

A woman in the city's Nan'an district pleaded with police to change the number on her grandson's ID card because it ended in a four, which is considered unlucky by some Chinese. In Mandarin, "four" has the same pronunciation as "death", so people will often try to avoid it in their phone numbers or on car license plates. Officers explained to the woman when she went to the police station that the number was automatically generated and could not be changed.