In Mandarin Chinese, 六 (Pinyin: liù 🔊) means “six”. Six is considered a lucky number. There is a Chinese saying, 六六大顺 (liù liù dà shùn), which means “everything is going smoothly”.
If to indicate “four” we needed six strokes, as in 四, here we have four strokes to indicate “six”. Strange, isn’t it? According to Wiktionary, 六 is a picture of a shed or a cabin, and is used because the word for shed 庐 (lù) sounds similar to liù. Many historical forms of this character indeed look like a shed or a hut, but the modern 六 reminds me more of a star jump exercise.
The Chinese hand sign for “six” is a hand with the thumb and pinky extended and other fingers closed:
There are other hanzi with the same meaning, 陸 (traditional) and 陆 (simplified), mainly used for financial purposes.
More photos related to numbers and sea glass @ Shutterstock.
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