(Un)lucky numbers

Here’s one of the most thought-provoking, if unintentionally hilarious to some readers, letter to the forum page in the last few days:

Sep 20, 2008
Baby’s birth cert reverses parental joy

THE arrival of my newborn daughter was a source of joy for my wife and myself – until I went to obtain her birth certificate from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).

To my horror, she was given the number T08-XX444X. As Chinese Singaporeans are aware, the number four suggests death, and implies misfortune.

I appealed to the ICA officer, also a Chinese Singaporean who understood my discomfiture. But she firmly rejected my plea because rules were rules, I was told. Subsequently, I appealed to a superior officer and waited an agonising week, making several calls in between, only to be given the same answer.

… (etc.)

Thing is, lucky and unlucky numbers are part and parcel of life in Singapore. I mean, whenever there’s an accident along an expressway here, there’ll be traffic jams caused by Singaporeans jockeying around to get the vehicle numbers so they can buy 4D.

Sadly, in this day and age of education, there’re still people who’ll believe that somehow their lives and fortunes are governed by a bunch of digits. The online responses to this fellow’s letter haven’t been all that surprising, few of them sympathetic and most of them incredulous of both the letter writer and even disbelief at The Straits Times for printing what one poster called such “trash”.

Funnily, I was asking Ling the other evening that if we ever have a daughter, could we name her “Faith”? She laughed and said our daughter would have a lot to live up to then, though it’s still better than naming her “April”. :)