Why?
After reading some materials (1), I feel that most of them are beating around the bush between numbers without finding the cultural roots. According to my poor mathematical knowledge, algebraic relations always correspond to certain geometric relations. We might as well change the even and odd in Chinese and Japanese cultures into space and look at this problem from the center and edge of civilization.
(In Horyuji, Japan, the pillars in front of the main hall are odd "five")
Look at the odd-numbered culture in Japan first. The essay "Japan's Strange Culture" (II) is quite concise, and the full text is quoted as follows.
Most people in China like even numbers: even numbers for weddings, even numbers for gifts, rhyming antithetical couplets during the Spring Festival, and even the usual greetings are inseparable from "double happiness" and "yes-man"; Japanese are different. They regard odd numbers as auspicious: the number of wine glasses used in the wedding is 3 in each group; Gifts given by guests should be bundled into a single form; The gift money is mostly 65,438+0,30,000 yen, even the number of sashimi at the banquet should be "single".
Some people call Japanese culture "odd-numbered culture", the most obvious of which is the haiku with three lines of 17 syllable, 5, 7 and 5 meter. The title of kabuki is either five words or seven words; There are three manipulators in Le Wen (puppet show), who manipulate the head, hands and feet of the puppet respectively. Even festivals with ethnic characteristics, such as Boys' Day (May 5th) and Girls' Day (March 3rd), are chosen on odd days.
Japanese architecture pays attention to asymmetry and asymmetry, and lattice windows and railings are simple straight lines, not geometrically neat and symmetrical shapes; In the dry landscape gardens such as Long 'an Temple and Dade Temple, stepping stones are arranged according to the number of 7-5-3 or 5-7-7. Even the number of plants in the garden is limited, usually an odd combination of 3-5-7-9- 1 1 to present the poetic beauty of rhythm.
The Japanese advocate odd numbers so much, which may be related to Zen and yin-yang thinking. Zen advocates seeking balance in imbalance. The concept of yin and yang takes odd numbers as positive numbers and even numbers as negative numbers. The latter is a symbol of bad luck. Affected by this, many Japanese regard husband and wife as a whole and think that things in pairs are easy to separate. They deliberately pursue the non-uniformity and asymmetry in landscape architecture in order to convey the beauty of the unbalanced area through the tortuous visual image. Starting from this way of thinking, the world has become an inseparable number. They try to spy on the invisible pure land with the naked eye, and it is impossible to achieve it with limited life. (End of quotation)
Interestingly, Japan's Children's Day also likes to choose odd days in July, May and March, which is consistent with the basic proportion of Japanese flower arrangement art. It is also a major feature of Japanese culture to link people's growth with flowers and flowers, and even to link people's fate with flowers and flowers.
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