In Japan the number 4 is considered a symbol of bad luck: this depends on its pronunciation, shi, which has the same sound as the word death. Ironically, there is also a strange football “curse” that torments the Japanese national team: in its history, Japan has never managed to go beyond the 4th match in a World Cup, and this evening at 7pm they will challenge Brazil in that fateful fourth match. A thrilling coincidence for Japanese fans, because in the country the number 4 is one of the best-known examples of how a mathematically neutral element can be transformed into a symbol culturally loaded with meaning – so much so that many private buildings, but also hotels and hospitals, skip the numbering of the fourth floor.
Its association with bad luck and death is not the result of an isolated belief, but of a long historical and linguistic process involving the formation of the written Japanese language, the influence of Chinese cosmology, and the very structure of symbolic thought in East Asia. Understanding this superstition, a fear called “tetraphobia”, means more generally asking ourselves why Japan still retains a particularly rich and layered system of symbolic beliefs today, despite its high level of modernization.
What does the number 4 mean in Japan: the genesis of the unlucky symbol
The main root of the superstition linked to the number 4 is linguistic. The character 四 (4) can in fact be read as shiwhich is homophone of 死 (shi), “death”. This phonetic coincidence constitutes the original nucleus of the association with the symbol of bad luck.
However, reducing the phenomenon to a simple sound similarity would be misleading: what makes superstition socially effective is the process of cultural stabilization of homophony.
In cognitive linguistics, this process can be interpreted as a form of “semantic condensation”: a sound does not just refer to a meaning, but activates a network of emotional and cultural associations. In the Japanese case, the historical repetition of the use of shi in contexts related to death (Buddhist rituals, funerary and formal language related to death) it strengthened the connection between number and mortality.
This association has progressively become institutionalized in daily life: the numbering of buildings, hospitals and rooms often avoids 4, not because it is imposed by official rules, but to respond to a shared social sensitivity. Superstition, therefore, is not a marginal residue, but a form of knowledge incorporated into the practical systems of society.
The historical spread of tetraphobia from China
The genesis of the superstition cannot be understood without considering the process of “cultural sinicization” of Japan. Between the 7th and 12th centuries, in particular, during the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794-1185) periods, Japan imported from China not only the writing system (kanji), but also a complex philosophical and cosmological system. Even in China the pronunciation of the number 4 is almost identical to that of the word “death”.
Within classical Chinese thought, numbers, colors, cardinal points, and seasons were organized into corresponding patterns as the Wu Xing (Five Elements). In this system, number was never purely quantitative, but part of a symbolic network that connected the cosmos to the social order.
Japan assimilated these models, reworking them into local forms that maintained the logic of symbolic association.
In this process, the number 4 acquired a double negative value: on the one hand due to its homophony with death, on the other due to its position within a numerical system that tended to favor cosmic harmonies and symmetries considered “auspicious”. This historical stratification is fundamental to understanding why superstition is not episodic, but structural.
Because the Land of the Rising Sun has many superstitions: continuity, modernity and symbolic density
The question of number 4 opens up a broader question: why does Japan still maintain a high level of symbolic beliefs and superstitions compared to other highly industrialized societies?
The answer is not simple, but it can be analyzed through three main factors: cultural continuity, religious structure and mode of integration of modernity.
The first element is the strong historical continuity of symbolic forms. In Japan, the past is not perceived as something completely separate from the present, but as a set of layers that coexist. Beliefs are not necessarily eliminated, but reworked and integrated.
This applies to Shintoism, which maintains a ritual dimension linked to the presence of the Kami, and to Buddhism, which preserves many practices linked to death and memory.
The second element concerns the very nature of Japanese religiosity, often described as “non-exclusive” or “syncretic”. Religious practices are not rigidly dogmatic, but overlap at different levels of daily life. This allows the coexistence between technological rationality and symbolic thought without the perception of contradiction.
The third element is modernity itself. Unlike a model in which modernization implies the removal of traditional beliefs, in the Japanese case modernity has often incorporated pre-existing symbolic elements, adapting them to new contexts.
Avoiding the number 4 in hospitals or hotels is not a “resistance to the modern”, but a form of cultural adaptation to social sensitivity.
From symbol to contemporaneity: between everyday life and global imagination
In contemporary Japanese society the number 4 continues to be handled in a pragmatic and symbolic way at the same time. Many buildings avoid the fourth floor, some companies change product numbering and in sensitive contexts it is preferred to use linguistic alternatives such as yon (another way to pronounce and write the unlucky number) in order to reduce the association with death.
This shows that superstition is not static, but flexible and adaptive. It is part of a cultural system that continues to negotiate between tradition and modernity.
Even in global contexts, such as international sport or media narratives, numbers continue to be interpreted symbolically, as demonstrated by the tendency to read statistical sequences or “numerical barriers” in events such as the World Cup or the Olympics.
Ultimately, the case of the number 4 in Japan does not just concern a local belief, but illuminates a broader mechanism: the human ability to transform language and numbers into complex symbolic systems, through which to interpret reality, risk and destiny.
