

After spending just 30,000 RMB ($4,370) on his new vehicle, a driver surnamed Liu decided to splurge on his license plate, spending 1 million RMB ($145,705) on one with 5 lucky number 8s, hoping it would keep him out of trouble on the road. It totally backfired on him.

On his first day behind the wheel, Liu was stopped no less than eight times by local police. You must be wondering what exactly Liu was doing to attract so much attention. Well, according to NetEase, it wasn’t Liu’s driving, but his “lucky” license plate that caused police to pull him over, with officers believing that it just had to be fake.

In China, “8” is considered to be the luckiest number, since in Mandarin it sounds like the word for “prosperity” or “wealth” and in Cantonese it sounds like the word for “fortune.” That means license plates with a few 8s are prized as a fortuitous status symbol and can often cost drivers as much as a cheap car.

But all 8s? Officers just refused to believe it. One cop even swore that he would eat the car plate if it was real.



Well, would you like rice or noodles with that? Police were speechless after checking Liu’s driver’s license and vehicle registration and finding that the plate was actually authentic. Apparently, they were also too stunned to notify their colleagues, because Liu had to go through this whole song and dance another seven times.Liu isn’t the only proud owner of an 88888 license plate in China. Though in other provinces, the ride attached to the plate is often a bit nicer:渝D 88888 (Sichuan province)粤A 88888 (Guangdong province)浙A 88888 (Zhejiang province)豫D 88888 (Henan Province)京 88888 (Bejing)Earlier this year, netizens went nuts after one journalist recorded the insane amount of luxury cars with personalized license plates seen parked outside a government meeting in Dongguan . None of those cars even had four 8s.By Sophie Wang[Images via NetEase



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