In Hong Kong, Health, Wealth PAID4 With Big Money

For all the tension and excitement, they could have been auctioning off fine works of art or exquisite jewelry. A Monet, perhaps, or a Faberge egg.

In the auditorium of a high-rise Hong Kong government building last week, the auctioneer poised with her raised gavel as attendants scanned the audience for bidders. Professional agents consulted clients by cellular phones.

Cora Tse, a secretary at a construction company sent to represent her boss, tittered nervously and made a winning bid, the equivalent of about $45,000. All for a piece of plastic labeled “HY1” to be placed on the rear end of her boss’ car. His company is called Hop Yuen. And he, of course, is No. 1.

Vanity license plates are one thing. Many countries and U.S. states, including California, allow their citizens to advertise themselves, their true loves or their pet fantasies on their automobiles, usually for a modest supplemental fee. Hence, all the “2COOL” and “10SNE1” (Tennis, anyone?) and “PAID4” plates around the world.

However, Hong Kong has taken the tag game to a new level by auctioning off requested or desirable plates to raise money for government-approved charities. In 1994, a wealthy man named Albert Yeung Sau-shing paid nearly $2 million for the right to the single digit plate: “9.” In 1993, a property developer spent $1.3 million to be No. “2.” Then he had to buy a car to put it on.

Much of the attraction toward special plates comes from the traditional Chinese cultural penchant for numerology and from words in the Cantonese dialect that are homonyms for long life and wealth.

For example, the Cantonese pronunciation of “9” sounds like the word for “everlasting.” It also sounds like the word for “dog,” which, during the Chinese zodiac’s Year of the Dog, makes it a prized possession dog tag.

Similarly, the Cantonese pronunciation of “2” sounds like the word for “easy.” So when it is combined with a “prosperous” sounding “8”--as in “28”--it can be loosely translated as “easy money.” Not surprisingly, the “HY2828” auctioned last week went for a handsome $5,000.

For the Hong Kong government, at least, the money could not come easier. The demand for such auspicious plates has earned the city and local social service charities it supports $80 million since the auctions began in 1973. Despite the charitable destination for their money, the bidders are offered no tax break or incentive for their investment.

Not all the bidders are high rollers. At last week’s auction, which earned city-sponsored charities nearly $2 million for 81 coveted license numbers, magazine photographer Wang Chi-shing happily paid $800 for the right to put the plate “CS725” on his new Honda Accord.

His initials are C.S. and his birthday is July 25. There is no other obvious significance to the plate. Wang asked the government to put the birthday plate on the auction list, the only way to purchase it. Yet, in the kind of contagious maniacal bidding that accompanies these auctions, several other people inexplicably bid against him for his special birthday plate.

“I don’t know why,” said Wang, who was nonetheless beaming with contentment over his winning bid. “I should have been able to get it for the minimum [$260], but then the others joined in.”

Meanwhile, Raymond Hui, who operates a successful business importing Japanese food, was practically delirious that he managed to procure “CM557” for his Vespa motor scooter for the minimum bid. It wasn’t the letters he was interested in, but the numbers. Hui, who also collects Mao Tse-tung buttons, now owns 13 vehicles--ranging from sport vans to refrigerated trucks for delivering raw fish--all bearing the final three digits “557.”

The first one--”CP557”--he was given at random by the government when he bought his first car in 1982. Hui, who claims not to be superstitious, nonetheless saw this as a good omen, since his wife’s birthday is May 5, 1957.”

And in the years that followed, his import business on Moon Street in Hong Kong’s Wanchai District prospered, and he was able to buy nearly all the buildings on the block, including a 22-story apartment building.

Still, Hui insisted on a recent morning over a cup of Japanese tea, “I don’t really believe in lucky numbers. The only real key to success is hard work.”