Henan businessman finds million-yuan car plate unlucky

A businessman from Zhengzhou, in central China's Henan province, said he was stopped by police officers eight times in one day after he put up a new car plate on his low-cost minivan.

Police became suspicious because his car plate was K88888, considered a very lucky number that could fetch more than a million yuan (US$150,500) at car plate auctions, while his vehicle, a Wuling Sunshine, costs only 30,000 yuan, news website People.cn reports.

The man, surnamed Zhou, said traffic officers suspected that he stole the minivan and used a fake plate to be able to drive it around.

One officer even told him he would eat the car plate if it proved genuine, but later apologized after Zhou presented documents to prove that he owns the minivan and the plate is real.

Zhou said he spent more than a million yuan to buy the plate for his own use as he wanted to promote his small logistics business by putting it on his fruit delivery van.

He said he has collected several other car plates with lucky numbers as investments.

Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture as its pronunciation is similar to a Chinese word that means "get rich".

Car plates with "88888" are usually sold for over a million yuan in many provinces.

But the car plate did not prove quite lucky for Zhou.

He said he was pulled over by traffic policemen eight times on Sunday, and it took him half an hour each time to convince them that everything was in order.

Meanwhile, curious onlookers gathered around to see what the commotion was about and to look at his car plate.

"I never thought that I would be in such deep trouble,” he said.

Translation by Chloe Chow

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