Sophie Li

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!

Did you have any bad luck today? Do you believe in Friday the 13th?

This got me thinking about the superstitions around numbers. I grew up with my Chinese family, and we have another whole set of “good” numbers and “bad” numbers. Unlike Friday the 13th which has biblical origins, Chinese superstitions about numbers are based on their phonetic pronunciation.

For example:

4 is a BAAAAD number, because it sounds phonetically like “die”, or “death” in Chinese. Therefore any number that contains the digit 4 is considered bad. 14 = “will die”, 147 = “we’ll die together”, and 14147 = “NO ONE LIVES”.

6 is a good number, because it sounds like “smooth sailing”. You know how 666 is a bad number in Western culture? This is actually a GREAT number in China.

8 is THE BEST NUMBER EVER, because it sounds like “get rich”. You may notice that Chinese people like to get married on, say, August 8, 2018, and that some of your Chinese friends may have 8’s in their emails or car license plate.

Now I’m curious to hear about the superstitions in your culture!

You may recognize this tag from elsewhere on the blogosphere! After seeing amazing aesthetics by other fellow bloggers (Nyx @ Drizzle and Hurricane Books, Melissa @ The Bookish Wanderer, and Beth @ Reading Every Night), I was inspired to give this a go! (Definitely check out their aesthetics – they are awesome!!)

The Rules:

1. Collect any number of images that you feel represent you as a person—your personality, aspirations, favorite things, anything at all that makes you you.
2. Put your chosen images together into a collage of whatever size and shape you find pleasing.
3. Share your masterpiece with everyone, in all the places.
4. Maybe nominate other bloggers as a way to tell them, “Hey, you, I think you’re awesome, and we should celebrate that awesomeness.”
5. Share these rules (and maybe the below tips, if you’re feeling helpful).

Tips:

• Find inspiration by spending (minimum) three hours scrolling through aesthetic Tumblr posts relevant to you.
• Two great places to hunt for pictures are Pinterest and WeHeartIt. Pinterest requires an account; WeHeartIt does not.
• PicMonkey’s collage editor is free to use and doesn’t require an account, heck yes. YouTube has plenty of tutorials on how to use it; I watched this one (which begins with tips on how to find decent photos).

My aesthetic:

I am a bit nervous about posting this one, because there are a few photos from my personal collection (including a photo of me and a photo of my dog!) I will let you guys guess which one is me 🙂

Some of my favourite hobbies (other than blogging!) are featured in this aesthetic: Reading, sewing, writing, and pole dancing. I have an adorable (and spoiled) greyhound, Charles, and I am a big fan of positivity and perseverance.

Photo credits go to Pinterest and my iPhone 🙂

How was your Friday the 13th? Do you believe in superstitions? Are there superstitions that are unique to your culture? What are your favourite hobbies?

If you love making aesthetics, or want to give it a try, you are welcome to do this tag!!