Eight

1. I was born on the 8th day of the month.

2. I feel like I was born on the 8th day. If you think that God made the world in 7 days, then I arrived after all the action is done. By the mid 70s, Singapore was firmly on the path to being an Asian "tiger". It had completed the transition from post-war, post colonial third world country to Highly Regimented And Anal Retentive Economic Power.

3. I thought of myself as an octopus. I nicknamed myself octopus once.

4. I used to stay in Lorong 8. (Toa Payoh, not Geylang.)

5. I had another nickname with the number 8 in it.

6. I have 8 uncles and aunts*.

7. On my mother's side of the family there are 8 grandchildren. On my father's side of the family there are 8 grandchildren, of whom I am the eldest.*

8. 8 is considered a lucky number because it sounds like "fa". "Fa" is in my father's name.



* My grandmother, finding herself unable to raise all her children, gave 2 away. They're not counted here. I have met 1 of them, "the missing aunt", before.