In most Chinese and Sinosphere languages, the words for "four" (四) and "death" (死) are written differently but pronounced similarly (sì and sǐ respectively in Mandarin, sei-3 and sei-2 respectively in Cantonese, shi for both in Sino-Japanese, tứ and tử respectively in Sino-Vietnamese, and sa for both in Sino-Korean). As a cultural trope, East Asian works of media tend to treat the number in much the way Western writers treat the number ...