The Straits Times
Baby's birth cert reverses parental joy
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.
I grant that sticking to a system of rules is important. But so too is crafting exceptions which humanise the system.
My wife and I took great pains to craft our daughter's name, consulting time-honoured cultural principles, because we wanted an auspicious life for her. Imagine having a birth certificate number like 444 which counters all that.
A birth certificate is a personal and important life-long document.
A system which forces officers to stick rigidly to the rulebook without due regard for cultural sensitivities is not a good one. Rules are made to serve citizens and not the other way round.
I'm not giving up. I hope that my daughter can be given a more appropriate birth certificate number and I'm not asking for very auspicious figures.
Joseph Tan
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The Straits Times printed this letter and I personally find it quite fantastically ridiculous that it did! I think the editors must be trying to have a laugh or to make the day of many readers.
The birth certificate number obviously runs up in numbers in the year based on whatever calculation system the ICA has. If your daughter's life is going to be run by numbers or if you are afraid that bad identification numbers are going to destroy her carefully crafted life, then I think you are going to lead her into a very miserable one.
What if her future passport number, mobile phone number, telephone number, driving licence number, credit card number, credit card bill number, matriculation card number, EZ Link card number, car number, house address number, postal code number, staff ID number, class number, spectacles degree number, doctor queue number, salary number, bra size number, underwear size number, vital statistics number, current living date number (how does 4th April 2044 sound to you?) all have numerous number "4" in it...what are you going to do?
I highly believe she won't even care. I doubt she'll appreciate it if you are going to tell her to swap a new mobile phone number or wear a spectacle with 388 degrees instead of her prescribed 440 degrees or change her bra size from 34 to 28 or 38 or try to run away from the date 4/4/44 by hiding in a temple or something.
If you have your beliefs, do not apply them to other people. If the ICA or MP or PM or MM or UN or Interpol allows you to change your daughter's birth certificate number because you think having "444" means she's going to be cursed, then those whose birth certificates have the series "888" are going to be damn hell of a rich! (How I wish I had "888" in my birth cert, then I don't have to work hard or think too much about my life because I'll be fated to be rich anyway...right? wrong? hmm...)
Your daughter's life and lifestyle is first in your hands and then in hers. I doubt that a series of numbers are going to destroy her life.
By the way, congratulations on having a happy healthy baby. Focus on the right stuff and bring her up well. 444 is in her birth cert, but 888 is what you have gotten in life. Nothing is going to change that and nothing will...but maybe only you can.
Make her life an 888.
2 comments:
Ah. A supposedly inauspicious birth certificate is so insignificant compared to the fact that the baby is healthy.
That's why.
Mr Tan should count his blessings and bring his daughter up well instead of dwelling on some numbers.
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