There are times when I have to read something more than once before the message penetrates and I realize just how bizarre it is. Such is the odd and irrational case of the fear of the number four.
For the second time in the last six months I have read how some disgruntled Chinese homeowners in Arcadia want to change their address because the street number contains one or more fours in it. This, they contend, is the reason they can't sell their home quickly.
In the Chinese community, superstition, according to both articles, runs high and the number four carries some particularly bad mojo with it. It is not because of the number itself. No, that would be far too easy to comprehend. The problem here lies in the world of phonetics.
Apparently this is because word four in Mandarin happens to sound like the word for death. And since nobody wants to have the number four in their address, some people, obviously a lot of people, are balking at buying or even looking at those properties.
One four is bad, but heaven help you if you have more than one. It is real estate suicide in Arcadia’s highly Asian community. Arcadia, you see, unlike some other cities in the San Gabriel Valley, refuses to change the numbers even for a fee.
Most of us, who are not shackled by the Mandarin dialect and its superstitions, would never have known about the evil number four and its bad voodoo. That is unless you were trying to sell your home in the San Gabriel Valley and found out that somebody didn't want to even look at your property because, gasp, it had multiple fours!
According to Adam Gulick in Temple City's planning commission office, all it takes is 500 bucks and your pesky little four will vanish from your Temple City address. He made it sound like when it does happen, which occurs about once every month or two, that the process is easy and no big deal.
I got a different response from Jim Donovan at Rosemead's planning commission. He said that despite what the articles in the newspaper said he does not do it easily. He personally reviews every case and makes sure that it does not have a negative impact on adjacent businesses and the neighborhood.
But once those hurdles have been cleared Rosemead is a bargain next to Temple City. $120.00 smackeroos gets it done. Sorry Jim, but that is way too cheap in this day and age. If homeowners want to disrupt the natural order of things over a sound alike word they should pay through the nose for it.
One thing I was wondering about when I first read about this anomaly and its solution, if the person wanting the change got to pick the new number. According to Adam they do not have that luxury. They cannot say "Hey I like the number 888", like some kind of home version of a personalized license plate. They have to take a number that is chronologically successive.
But there is still something that doesn't strike me as right about this whole process. It is like a spoiled child stomping its feet when it doesn't get a piece of candy on demand. I may want a pony, but just because I want one doesn't mean I am going to get one.
It also makes me want to ask the current homeowners , if the number four was acceptable when you bought the house originally, where were all the objections to this superstition then? I always thought all important superstitions were based on ancient fears and wisdom, or the lack there of.
I guess this must be a relatively new bit of mumbo jumbo that has made its way to our shores, but I think I have a couple of solutions and an explanation for these homeowners.
One solution would be to do what many people who can't sell their homes for a couple of months do. Lower your asking price. Second would be to try marketing your home to the non Mandarin speaking market. While they may be fewer in this area nowadays, I do believe they still exist. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
And the explanation? It's not the number four that is preventing you from selling your house quickly right now. It's the economy.
Trust me when I tell you that right now, those are the only numbers that count in this equation.
Bill Dunn has been a published opinion columnist for 14 years. Any comments can be sent to either our exalted editor at tmiller@beaconmedianews.com or to Bill directly at dunnsinferno@casegod.com You can also find Bill on Facebook at : www.facebook.com/WhenAllisSaidandDunn
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