Kai loves numbers. When we first arrived to Shanghai and moved to the nineteenth floor, he was thrilled because everyday he could watch the elevator display go all the way to nineteen and back. Soon he started counting out loud and I realized that in no time he had memorized how to count backwards from 19 to 1. No small feat for a two and a half year old.

Next, he noticed that other boys on the playground wore clothes that had numbers on them and clearly, he wanted a set too. Of course he didn't know that the other boys were wearing soccer outfits but since we found his fixation fascinating, we hit the fake market to find a copy of a famous jersey that would have the number 19. Lucky for us, FC Barcelona has a star player called Lionel Messi with number nineteen assigned to him. When Kai saw the outfit for the first time, he was thrilled; "I'm nineteen, I'm nineteen!". We had to physically peel the outfit off of him a couple of days later as he even wanted to sleep in it.

So imagine our confusion when Kai started talking about himself as number 12 a few months back. Next, I noticed his stuff from school would only have the number 12 and not his name written down on art projects, notes or even water bottles. So I quizzed him a bit more.
" Kai, who is number 12?"
" Me"
" Ok, but who calls you number 12?"
" My teachers"
" Why?"
" Because I'm number twelve"
" I see"

I asked David, why he thought they are calling him number twelve? Not clear. Then a couple of weeks later I went to pick up Kai from school as he was running a fever. He was sleeping on a bamboo bed with a mattress that had the number 12 written on it. As we were getting ready to go home, Kai wanted a drink of water and he walked over to the wall of cups and picked up a mug hanging on the hook, you guessed it, number 12 written on the side of it.

Still puzzled why the school would assign him a number, I finally asked my colleagues at work if they had been assigned numbers in kindergarten and they all said yes. "But why?" It's an easy way to know what items are yours, came the reply. Like your seat, your blanket, your mattress, your cupboard, your items. You don't need to re-label everything when students come and go. "But how do you get your number assigned; what is it based on?" (I had visions of achievement charts, weight and height ratios, IQ tests with my boy hovering somewhere in the middle of the bell curve since his class has 30 students). "Oh, easy" they said. It's based on the pronunciation of his name "Kai". Like alphabets in the western language, kids names are charted based on the pronunciation and following, they get an assigned number. I still wanted to know what happens when a kid whose name falls somewhere in the mid range of the pronunciation chart like Kai leaves and is replaced by "Wang Yi", what happens to the numbers? Does everybody get bumped up a notch to release the bottom slot or does he get assigned the available but out-of-order number?

Never mind. I know I still ask way too many questions.

(David's P.S.:
The other day, coming up the lift, Kai looked up and said:

"...I wonder what's on 12...? We should get off on 12, Daddy".

"Well", I responded, "there's ice cream on 19..."

"Ok, Daddy. You go up to 19 and bring the ice cream to 12. I'm getting off at 12!")