A couple of months have gone by, but we’re now back again with the next Chinese Domaining Masterclass article!
As several industry thought leaders, journalists, and domain investors have highlighted the importance of the booming domain market in China lately, we aim to continue this effort in educating and assisting western domain investors navigate the highly lucrative, yet somewhat “foreign” Chinese domain space.
If you have any particular questions or need advice concerning the Chinese domain name space, please do not hesitate to contact our expert team of consultants at info@chineselandrush.com.
Continuing on our coverage of numeric domains and China, this blog article we’ll be going over the number nine (9):
9: 九; Pinyin: Jiǔ
The number nine in Chinese culture is said to symbolize limitations, however that does not necessarily give it a negative meaning. Contrarily, the number nine represents the farthest possible reach of mortal effort. It’s the largest possible single-digit number, which actually represents power and prestige. In Chinese ancient culture, a king would be referred to as “the noble body of 9 & 5.” At the same time, Chinese people in the past would regard odd numbers within 10 as Yang (1, 3, 5, 7, 9) and regard even numbers within 10 as Yin (2, 4, 6, 8). This means that the number nine is the biggest number for Yang, making it a very important number for Chinese people.
The Mandarin spelling and pronunciation of the number nine is “jiǔ,” and the Cantonese spelling and pronunciation is “gau.” The most common sound-a-like for the number nine is “a long time.”
- The noun [n.] sound-alikes for the number nine is: uncle, liquor, long duration of time, and dog (Cantonese)
- The adjective [adj.] sound-alikes for the number nine is: after all, at once, then, right away, old
- The adverb [adv.] sound-alike for the number nine is: enough (Cantonese)
It’s now time to go over the three specific categories that western domainers should keep in mind when investing in numeric domains in the Chinese domain market space: references, puns, and the unit of innate meaning.
References
There are thousands of sayings and idioms that frequently find reference to the number nine. In figurative terms, some instances of these references mean “extremely large in number,” “the largest,” and even “countless.”
9999: Beijing’s old Imperial Palace, also known as the Forbidden City, consists of 9,999 rooms.
95555: The customer service number of the prestigious China Merchant Bank, which is favored by China’s wealthy and ultra-wealthy.
Puns
94: is pronounced “jiu shi.” These are the exact syllables as 就是, meaning “exactly!” or “precisely!”; 酒失, meaning “mistakes made while drunk,”; 旧式, meaning “old style,”; 久视, meaning “immortality,”; 就世, meaning “save the world,” and 18 other phrases with the exact same pronunciation.
Unit of Innate Meaning
95: In ancient Tai Chi, the number nine is the largest number of the masculine principle of Yang. More evidence of the power of nine is the concept that heaven, in the Chinese context, has nine layers. For thousands of years, the number 95 has been the number for emperors, because nine is the topmost number of “unmatched majesty,” and five is in the middle of the numbers of Yang (balance), which means that the Emperor is the very model of the divine, total majesty, and wisdom.
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Thank you for stopping by to learn more about numeric domains and its extremely important role in the Chinese domain investment space. Numerics are proven assets in China, and you should know how to properly invest in them with the Chinese context in mind.
If you have any further questions that relate to the number nine, please don’t hesitate to contact us and our team of experts, and we will do our best to help you answer any questions you may have.
In the meantime, head over to ChineseLandrush.com and take a look at our list of hundreds of meaningful, premium-sounding, and readily available Chinese domain suggestions! If you have a portfolio of English names that you want translated properly into Chinese, let us know! We help domain investors translate English names into Chinese the right way (not the Google way), to get them going on their journey of IDN investing. Not to mention this service is completely free as well!