Four Means More Than Death

Notice anything missing?

Most expats misinterpret the Chinese disinclination for the number four. Just because it’s left out of elevators and hopefully phone numbers doesn’t mean four commands taboo juju power over the Chinese heart. Saying “four” sounds like saying “death”, and so having fours out in plain view where they must be seen and said is somewhat distasteful, like having a president named Dick, or Bush.

Above coincidental homophones, the Chinese respect numbers for the relationships they symbolize. Beyond a death word, then, to the Chinese four has a yin aspect that represents both the West and the earth, which in the old days had four corners and could be divided into rectangles. Back then, the Middle Kingdom lay in the center of four seas, surrounded by four barbarian tribes.

In fact, many cultural and historic Chinese concepts, having little or nothing to do with death, occur in fours and are fondly spoken of as such, with nary a superstitious shudder.

The Four Pillars of Destiny

Created by the Song Dynasty equivalent of Francis Bacon, the Four Pillars consist of the year, month, day, and hour of one’s birth. Branches spring from the pillars, some representing the five elements, others heaven and earth. All one’s pillars and branches taken together give a detailed chart with which to gauge family, business, and romantic relationships, as well as talents and faults, and possible destinies.

Far from a static set of predictions, one’s Four Pillars chart points out which paths to destiny are relatively auspicious, and which to avoid. Definitely not a pursuit for the confirmed rationalist, but those who’ve paid feng shui consultants should give it a go.

The Four Musts

As the Mao Zedong era waned, unabashed materialism once again crept back into public life. By the mid 1970s, getting a wife meant having the means to give her the Four Musts: a bicycle, a radio, a watch, and a sewing machine.

Predictably, a taste of such indulgence only maddened women for luxury, so that soon after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms the only man who would do had the Eight Bigs: a color TV, refrigerator, stereo, camera, motorcycle, suite of furniture, washing machine, and electric fan. As hedonism spirals unchecked, telling a woman today you have eight bigs gets you either a confused look or a pitying smile.

The Four Principles of Confucianism

The bedrock of Chinese society, no matter how many layers of decayed sediment cover it, these four principles were taught by the Sage to ensure always at least a few educated glimmers of light in the undifferentiated, self-serving darkness.

Humanity (ren), Propriety (li), Rectitude (yi), and Wisdom (zhi). Only hearts that adhere to these principles can maintain a stable society.

Tell that to a revolutionary, though. In a turn to make George Orwell proud, Mao Zedong once dictated his Four Principles of Guerilla War: defend in order to attack; retreat in order to advance; flank in order to take the front position; curve in order to go straight. Whatever their effectiveness in combat, someone must inform Chinese footballers that these principles don’t work on the pitch.

The Four Requirements

Pity today’s poor Chinese student, cramming for his college exams. Wait – don’t. During the fourteenth century, sitting for the Civil Service Examinations was a seventy-two hour ordeal spent in a stifling cubicle more fit for Guantanamo than Guangzhou Tech.

So to pass the Civil Service Examinations, old wisdom held that a successful candidate met four requirements – the spirit of a dragon, the power of a donkey, the insensitivity of a wood louse, and the endurance of a camel. However those possessed of a fifth requirement, enough bribe money, had little need of the other four.

The Four Qualifications

Not all Chinese women of old were obliged to play the role of fading lily. Those blessed by birth to a life of poverty and unceasing labor had relatively few social constraints placed on them. For ladies of privilege though, deficits in the following four qualifications reflected badly on their families, ancestors, and the Celestial race as a whole.

Womanly virtue: to guard her chastity, to exhibit modesty in every motion, and to control her behavior with unwavering circumspection.

Womanly words: to avoid vulgar language, to speak at appropriate times, and not to weary others with much conversation.

Womanly bearing: to wash and scrub filth away, to keep clothes and ornaments fresh and clean, to wash the head and bathe the body regularly, and to keep free from disgraceful filth.

Womanly work: to sew and weave with devotion, to avoid gossip and silly laughter, and to prepare wine and food for serving guests.

The Four Rebel Dragons

Way, way back there was a time of great drought and heat, and with no Al Gore to turn to, four celestial dragons took pity on the people and gave them rain. Alas, they failed to beg leave from the Jade Emperor, who with typical flare for fitting punishment turned them into China’s four great rivers, the Heilongjiang in the north, the Huanghe through the middle, the Changjiang in the south, and the Pearl River far south. And you thought the Dragon Boat Festival was just about dead poets and zongzi.

The Four Sacred Mountains

Common sense dictates that the closer to heaven, the holier a place is. It’s hard enough just to feel your face, let alone holiness on the peak of Mt. Everest, so the Chinese rank less imposing, but no less majestic mountains as their most divine. They are Wutai Shan in Shanxi, Anhui’s Jiuhua Shan, Zhejiang’s Putuo Shan [ literally Potala Mountain], and Sichuan’s Emei Shan.

Deities used to reign over these holy mountains, but have since departed for peaks with fewer spam-sausage wrappers and bright yellow baseball caps. The Bodhisattva Manjusri presided over Wutai Shan. The King of Hell guarded Jiuhua Shan, while Guanyin, the goddess of Mercy, ruled Putuo Shan, and Bodhisattva Pu Xian, the all gracious, smiled on Emei. They’re all still accessible at your local Buddhist temple, however. Simply tell an attendant monk what favor you need, and he’ll tell you how much to pay for incense.

The Four Social Classes

Old Chinese society had four strata under the heavenly aegis of the emperor and his kin: the scholar, the peasant, the craftsman, and the merchant. Hopelessly out of it, the ancient Chinese held not the merchant in highest esteem, no matter how expensive his cigarettes, but the scholar, for safeguarding the transmission of Confucius’ four principles. Not second or third but dead last came the merchant, regarded as a parasite who added little value to the human experience.

At least he wasn’t a soldier. Confucians largely despised the military, and a military class was entirely discounted, perhaps as a preventative. Also nonexistent in theory was a laboring class, since anyone in those pre-industrial times who devoted himself to making something, be it porcelain or silk, could hardly be termed a laborer.

The Four Truths

Finally, long before Spinoza taught us how to cut through all the crap, Chinese Buddhist mystics gave us this recipe for arriving at truth. Organized religionists, dogmatists, and the otherwise mentally lazy take note:

Rely not upon the person, but upon the doctrine.

With respect to the doctrine, rely not on the words but on the meaning.

With regard to the meaning, rely not on the interpretable meaning, but on the definitive meaning.

With regard to the definitive meaning, one should not rely upon comprehension by an ordinary state of consciousness but upon an exalted wisdom of consciousness.

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