老外亲述：为啥中国人这么喜欢用数字？_BEC初级作文

老外亲述：为啥中国人这么喜欢用数字？

但有件事似乎是不可能完成的任务：记住我的QQ号。作为所在部门的唯一外国员工，我显然也是唯一受困于该问题的人。我的中国同事都能轻松背出自己10位或9位的QQ号。如果你问我我的QQ号是多少，在中国生活并使用该服务104周后，我还是记不住。

rattle off：飞快说出

I once asked the British guy working in the office next to ours if he remembered his. He did not. Neither could my two American friends. “What do those numbers mean?” we’d whined to each other. “There’s no order of any kind to them. Why not just use letters?!”

我曾经问隔壁办公室的一位英国人能否记住自己的QQ号，他也不能。我的两位美国朋友也不能。“这些数字有什么含义？”我们相互抱怨，“这些数字没有任何规律，为什么不用字母呢？”

whine[waɪn]：vi.发牢骚；哭诉

I had been tempted to place the blame squarely on our collective terrible memories but turns out, there was possibly more to this.

我忍不住将此归咎于我们的记忆力都很糟糕，但其实还有其他原因。

None of the locals we’d asked seemed to find anything unusual about remembering not only long strings of QQ digits, but also various other sets of numbers in other areas of their everyday lives. They turned up in website domain names. They were part of internet slang. Certain numbers assumed significance in cultural beliefs: some were auspicious; others were to be fled from at all cost. It seemed living in China meant being constantly bombarded by numbers, much more so than in other countries and cultures.