Taiwan Number Four Poem by U Win Kyi

In Taiwan dialect, death is pronounced ' seet'
Number 4 is also pronounced ' seet. '
So death and 4 have the same pronunciation
but with a different meaning.
4 is regarded bad omen as unlucky,
scary and spooky
as the number 13.
In high-rise hospital building
there is this superstition.
But there is a clever way of numbering the floors.
It is F1, F2, F3, F5, F6 and on...skipping F4.
The logic is so simple
for a patient admitted to hospital.
He is thus avoided lying in seet bed at seet floor (bed no: 4 and 4th F)
both sounded as death bed and death floor.
Otherwise he would surely die from depression
caused by superstition
rather than the disease or infection.