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'Unlucky' cabs banned from carrying examinees
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-07 10:06
A Shanghai taxi company has banned cabs with unlucky license plates from
carrying students to sit the National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) this
week.
Dazhong, the city's largest taxi company, won't carry students in cabs with
license plates ending in the number four, pronounced in the Shanghai dialect the
same as the word "lose."
Many Chinese avoid four because it is pronounced the same as "death" in
widely spoken Mandarin.
"Lots of parents refuse to take cabs with number plates which they consider
unlucky," the Shanghai Youth Daily on Monday quoted Dazhong's taxi boss Zhao
Leping as saying.
"We've seen many of them get angry at us because we have used them to carry
their children in past years," Zhao said.
Zhao said the company received a lot of complaints over license plate numbers
on the first day of the NCEE last July.
Many parents were furious when seeing taxis they had booked to take their
children to the exam venues were with license plates that ended with numbers
four or six.
The number of six also unluckily has similar pronunciation with the word
"fall" in Shanghai dialect, which was seen to bring bad luck to the exam takers.
About 130,000 students will take the crucial three-day NCEE starting Tuesday,
and 20,000 cabs have been booked to deliver them to the test venues on time.
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