Always Odd, Never Four
Written for OMOIDE by Lori Matsukawa
November 13, 2025
As I was pouring myself a glass of cold tea, I found myself counting out the ice cubes. “One, two, three, four and …five.” The fifth cube popped out of the tray and shot across the kitchen counter just out of my reach.
“Dang it!” I need that cube! I snagged the ice and plopped it into the glass.
I could have just let the silly thing slide into the sink. But then I would only have four ice cubes in my glass. And in Japanese culture, four is an unlucky number. My mother told me it was because the word for four was shi which sounds like the word for death shi. Nowadays, people use the word yon for four, but back when my mother was growing up, the family used shi. That’s why we avoided anything that came in fours. Tea cups always came in sets of 5. We never planted four shrubs in front of the house. When I put fillings into futomaki sushi rolls, I made sure there were five ingredients. I placed five items in my bowl of New Years’ ozoni soup. If I didn’t have five items, I scaled back to three. But never four. Some hotels and hospitals in Japan do not have fourth floors. Elevator buttons designate them as floor 3A or skip them entirely.
Three, seven and most odd numbers are considered lucky - or at least, not UNlucky. That’s why children in Japan celebrate their seventh, fifth and third birthdays with sweets. There are seven lucky gods. When I practice ikebana, I try to end up with odd numbers of stems.
The exception to this is the number 49 - which sounds like shiku - or suffering and death.