HONG KONG — A vehicle license¹ plate in Hong Kong sold at auction² for 18.1 million Hong Kong dollars on Sunday, or $2.3 million, the highest price ever paid in the city. The plate carries the number 28, which in Cantonese sounds similar to a phrase for “easy money.”

香港——周日，香港的一张机动车牌照以1810万港元的拍卖价格成交，创下香港车牌价新高。该牌照仅包含数字28，在粤语中的发音接近“易发”。

The new owner of the plate was not immediately clear. The bidder³, who also snatched the license plate 232 for $174,000, said he was representing another party, whom he did not name, according to Oriental Daily News, a Hong Kong newspaper.

车牌新主人的身份一时还不清楚。据香港媒体《东方日报》(Oriental Daily News)报道，那位竞拍者还以135万港元拿下了另一个印有数字232的无字头车牌。他表示自己是帮别人竞拍，并没有透露那人是谁。

The city introduced bidding for coveted⁴ license plate numbers in 1973, with the money going to charity. The most desired plates, which include the numbers 2 through 10 (1 is reserved for the police commissioner) and combinations of auspicious⁵ digits⁶, are owned by some of the city’s richest and most prominent people.

香港在1973年引入车牌拍卖，所获资金用于慈善。最受追捧的车牌包括数字2到10（数字1为警务处处长专用），以及比较吉利的数字组合。它们往往被香港最富有和最显赫的一些人纳入囊中。

In 1994, the jewelry⁷, property and entertainment tycoon⁸ Albert Yeung bought 9 for what was then a record of $1.6 million. The most recent peak license price was $2.1 million for 18, in 2008.

1994年，珠宝、地产和娱乐业大亨杨受成(Albert Yeung)曾以1300万港元买下一个印有数字9的无字头车牌，创下当时的最高纪录。最近的最高车牌价是2008年以1650万港元成交的一个印有数字18的车牌。嬠焀栀崀

Ten years ago, Hong Kong began to allow a wide array of vanity plates using letters of the alphabet, which triggered a rush of vehicular declarations like MCDADDY, XBATMANX and WHATEVER.

10年前，香港开始允许使用包含各种字母排列的自选牌号，催生了一大批如MCDADDY、XBATMANX和WHATEVER的个性车牌。

Will 28 bring easy money? The answer is as uncertain as the identity of its new owner. But a 2009 study by Travis Ng, Terence Chong and Xin Du at the Chinese University of Hong Kong found that for three-digit license plates, including a lucky number such as 8 brought a price premium⁹ of 95 percent. The premium got bigger the worse the stock market did, jumping 11 percent for each 1 percent decline in the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

数字28会让车主更容易发财吗？答案就像该车牌新主人的身份一样，并不清楚。不过，香港中文大学的吴嘉豪(Travis Ng)、庄太量(Terence Chong)和杜新（音）2009年发布的一项研究发现，包含8等吉利数字的三位数车牌会溢价95%。而且股市越差，溢价越高：恒生指数每降1%，车牌就溢价11%。

Likewise, unlucky numbers brought down the price. The presence of a number 4, which is a homonym¹⁰ for “death,” brings down the value of a four-digit plate 27 percent, and the price drops further with each fall in the Hang Seng.

相应地，不吉利的数字会使车牌贬值。数字4在粤语里的发音接近“死”，含这个数字会让一个四位数车牌贬值27%，且恒生指数每次下滑，都会把价格进一步拉低。

“A ‘4’ is bad, but it is even worse in bad times,” they wrote.

“4不是个好数字，但是在经济不景气时，它会显得更糟，”他们在这篇研究论文中表示。