If you’ve ever visited offices or taken the lift, you would notice that some signboards or lift buttons don’t show the number 4 and would instead replace it with ‘3A’.
While most don’t mind seeing 4 being replaced with something else, some have expressed discomfort over it, as one netizen did recently on Facebook.
M’sian argues ‘4’ shouldn’t be replaced with ‘3A’
Taking to the social media platform to share his thoughts on the matter, the netizen named Taquiddin Tabarani posted two photos, one of a signboard showing an office’s level as ’13A’, and another of a lift only showing ‘3A’ and not ‘4’.
In the post, he argued that doing so would confuse schoolkids who often struggle to differentiate between the two as they have been taught that ‘4’ is ‘4’ and not ‘3A’.
To back up his argument, Taquiddin said that he had encountered such situations several times, with the most recent being with a Standard 1 student who was taking the lift back to his own unit
“He was having trouble looking for the 24th floor as the lift button labelled it as 23A. I then told him to just press the 23A button as it was the same as 24.
Don’t you see? This confusion is really annoying. Sometimes, there are uncles trying to press the number but can’t find it as our system is used to 4, not 3A. Moreover, where in the world does 3A replace 4?
“Even in Chinese calligraphy, there is no replacement for 3A. This nonsense needs to be stopped,” he wrote.
Majority of netizens agree
Taquiddin’s post has since garnered widespread attention online, where netizens were largely in agreement with him and called for the number 4 to be reinstated.
‘Agree. This is ridiculous. The beliefs of one race shouldn’t interfere the daily lives of other races.’
‘It’s really troublesome. Easy to get mixed up. There was one time where the postman sent an item worth more than RM1,000 to the wrong house and it later escalated into theft accusations.’
Some tried to inject some humour into the conversation, with one saying that he saw a comment from another netizen who joked that he probably had to write his age as ‘3A3A’ instead of 44.
For those who’re unaware, the number 4 is often associated with bad luck in Chinese culture, where it means ‘death’ (死) when pronounced in Cantonese.
As such, some buildings would avoid displaying the number 4 altogether and replace it with ‘3A’ in order to ward off bad luck.
However, there are also numbers considered to be lucky, such as the numbers 8 and 9 as it’s associated with wealth and longevity.
Do you think buildings and lifts should stop using ‘3A’ as a replacement for ‘4’? Let us know in the comments!
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