【正文】 dishes on the table never is seven courses。 the seventh heaven, Lease of life, affection, language, sense of taste, optesthesia, sense of hearing, sense of smell (seven emotions), (seven wonders of the world) Egypt pyramid, The Babylon garden, Diana temples and so on. In addition, Buddhism and Islam respect for number 7, either. It is said that sakyamuni(釋迦牟尼 ), founder of Buddhism, spent 7 days attaining the right fruit by practicing Buddhism. Buddhism thinks all things are posed of seven principles earth, water, fire, wind, empty, knowledge, root。 sports circle, film and TV circle choose Topten stars. It is a tradition that people hold grand banquet for birthday or national day on 10. All of these reflect that the thought of Chinese tradition psychology of seeking perfect. 3. Lucky Numbers in Western Culture Since ancient Greek, dichotomy, which stresses the contradiction and antitheses between the two poles, has been treasured in western cultures, bringing forward the belief in “disharmony” or dissymmetry and hence respect for odd English culture has a special favor for odd numbers. People believe “there is luck in odd numbers” Western nations respect for number 7. In their minds, the number 7 is the most mysterious and holy number. In ancient times, people associating god with seven celestial biddiesthe sun, the moon, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn brought about profound effect for western culture even world cultures. Along with the Christianity rise and development, number 7 is of deep religious colors, perating into every aspects of western society. According to Old Testament, everything on the earth was created within seven days, and the number 7 thus has the association of pleteness and perfection. A lot of religious beliefs illustrate this point. For example, Mother of god has seven pleasures。九泉之下 means very deep。 the ninth heaven is the highest one。 in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Heart, Lungs, Liver, Kidney, Spleen, Gallbladder were called 六府 。 in the various schools of thoughts and their exponents, the most famous schools, Yin and Yang, Confucian, Ming, Taoism, Legalists were totally named 六家； six columns of books of Zhou Dynasty existing today were called LiuTao 六韜， administrative districts were divided into Liuxiang 六鄉(xiāng) 。 As for literature works, it reflected in Shakespeare’s plays. It is that all good things go by 。 Three seats are posed of Confucian, Taoism and Buddhism and so on. In folk legend, there are a great deal of idioms, for instance, many heads are better than one 三個臭皮匠賽過諸葛亮 , 一個好漢三個幫，一個籬笆三個樁 and so on. To western countries, the number 3 is still considered the same important as in china. Firstly, most westerners have a fondness for number 3, as a perfect number. To the English and most of the westerners, they believe that the whole world is made of three partsearth, ocean, sky, and the human body with three layersflesh, soul, spirit。 while a nation abstain from other numbers expressing the meaning of bad luck. All in all, culture reasons cause people different opinions on numbers. Ⅲ.The Comparison of Numeral Culture in Chinese and Western Cultures A. Lucky Culture of Numbers in China and English Speaking Countries 1. The Same Lucky Numbers Worshipped by Chinese and Westerners It is known to all that people prefer to number 3 and 8 not only in china, but also in most western countries. The number “three” and “eight” are considered to be the symbol of holy, dignity and luck. Both of them express in different forms because of different cultural traditions and religion faiths. Three is a very lucky number in China. At first, in Chinese , 3 is written in the form of 三 . The upper horizontal stroke stands for heaven, the down one stands for the earth and the middle one stands for humankind. Three horizontal strokes express the relationship among heaven、 earth and humankind. The concept of Shanqing(三清 ) appears in Chinese Taoism, they are 玉清 ,上清 ,太清 individually. In Buddhism, they are heaven, earth and people. In “Lao tzu”, Lao tzu expressed that one gives birth to two, two, to three, and three, to everything on the earth. Ancient people thought number starts 1, ends 10, and finally3. From the point of it, people impart a great meaning to 3 in Chinese culture. Meanwhile , 3 is relevant to most important thought and beliefs, such as three celestial bodies consists of sun, moon, and stars。 American idiom “twenty three”( 滾開 )。 【標題】 中西方數(shù)字的文化差異 【作者】 柯娟 【關(guān)鍵詞】 數(shù)字；吉祥文化；禁忌文化；差異 【指導(dǎo)老師】 余烈全 【專業(yè)】 英語 【正文】 I. Introduction Culture consists of material civilization and spirit civilization of the whole society. Chinese scholars, such as Hu Wenzhong and Jia Yuxin, have defined culture into two senses. In a broad sense, culture refers to all the material and spiritual products created by man. In a narrow sense, it refers only to spiritual products including language, literature, fine arts and so on. 1 Different people define “culture” from different angles. In fact, there are more than two hundred and fifty definitions. What has been termed the classic definition of culture was provided by the 19th century English anthropologist Edward Burt Tyler declared that Culture is a plex whole, which included knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of Cultural differences reflect that people in different environments possess differences of many aspects, such as language, knowledge, and religious faiths. Differences in culture, especially between China and English speaking countries, may lead to various understanding and explanation on the same thing or conception, even to reduce misunderstanding each other. Number is a bination of concept and mark, which is a conclusion that humankind observe objec