the person. Tetraphobia far surpasses triskaidekaphobia (Western superstitions around the number 13). It even permeates the business world in these regions of Asia. Cultural examples by regions In Mainland China Chinese is a tonal language with a comparatively small inventory of permitted syllables, resulting in an exceptionally large number of homophone words. Many of the numbers are homophones or near-homophones of other words and have therefore acquired superstitious meanings. The Chinese avoid phone numbers and addresses with fours because the pronunciation in "four" and "death" differ only in tone, especially when a combination with another number sounds similar to undesirable expressions. Example: “94” could be interpreted as being dead for a long time. The People's Republic of China makes free use of the number 4 in many military designations for People's Liberation Army equipment, with examples including the Dongfeng-4 ICBM, Type 094 submarine, and Type 054A frigate, although the practice of starting aircraft designations with 5 leads some to speculate that it avoids the starting numeral 4 for aircraft designations much as the United States avoids use of the number 13 in that context. By contrast, the navies of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and of South Korea refrain from using the number 4 when assigning pennant numbers to their ships. While in Mandarin-speaking regions in China, 14 and 74 are considered more unlucky than the individual 4, because 14 (十四, pinyin: shí sì) sounds like "is dead" (是死, pinyin: shì sǐ) and because in some forms of the language, 1 is pronounced (yao) which sounds like (yào 要), which means will be, when combined, it sounds like will be dead. 74 (七十四, pinyin: qī shí sì) sounds like "is already dead" (其实死, pinyin: qī shí sǐ) or "will die in anger" (气死, pinyin: qì sǐ). When Beijing lost its bid to stage the 2000 Olympic Games, it was speculated that the reason China did not pursue a bid for the following 2004 Games was due to the unpopularity of the number 4 in China. Instead, the city waited another four years, and would eventually host the 2008 Olympic Games, the number eight being a lucky number in Chinese culture. In recent years China has also avoided using the number 4 in aircraft registrations. An example is China Southern Airlines, with their A330s. One A330 is registered as B-8363, while the next is B-8365 and following B-8366. After B-8366 there