About three years ago, I had this colleague from Beijing whom I occasionally went out with. Because he preferred train to bus, we usually took the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit), Singapore's railway system. At that time, the MRT still had two interconnecting lines: North-South Line and East-West Line. Each train station in those two lines was numbered; Clementi station in the West, for instance, was numbered W8 to roughly say eighth station to the west of the City center. I always fail to notice the station number and just keep the station name in mind. And I never thought that anybody will ever use a different approach, till I found out to my surprise, my mainland friend (though he'd been in Singapore longer than me) rely on the station number alone as his travel guide, instead of the station name. Sometimes I passed a joked at his peculiar way of identifying the station, but he just couldn't help it.

It doesn't bother me again until recently, when a new North-East Line was opened and all the stations have to be renumbered. Fortunately, my Beijing friend has moved from Singapore, otherwise he has to reformat his memory of all the station numbers. As usual, there are always complaints for something new. One of them is on signage. Some older Singaporeans who do not use English (only Mandarin or Tamil) have difficulties identifying the station, because the signage shows only station number and the station name in English. Then it just hit me: what is the merit of the station numbers for the commuter? What is so fancy about having a number?

I can't remember Sydney's CityCircle put any station number or code in its metropolitan network. They just have names. If you observe the famous London Underground Map, which decorates many books on graphic design and information design, you will not find any station number. Just names, no numbers, even in its original Henry Beck's 1933 version. But looking at the Singapore MRT map you will be overwhelmed with the station numbers.

Living in Singapore for more than five years has made my devotion (and sensitivity) towards numbers all time high. Not that I hate numbers before. Math's numbers always amaze me (like those cute Number Theory's three-pages-solution-three-lines problem), but they're something external, outside me, as toys to play with, something inanimate and won't offend me in anyway. Much more than that, the numbers here seem so pervasive to me, at least compared to my not-so-laid-back hometown. They seem everywhere here. They may set in the ambience, individually or collectively. Some regard those numbers as decisive as the lines on the palm of one's hand. As always, it may not be generally true, but at least that's what I perceive, what journalists wrote and what some believe. As Tan Swie Hian (Singapore's most acclaimed artist who has received Crystal Award from World Economic Forum) observe it in his interview with Time July 2003," Singaporeans are materialistic; they don't read Plato or Shakespeare, they only read numbers."

Students struggle to reach for a higher number for exams and assignments, while their schools contend to grab a lower number in school ranking. Employees pursue bigger number in revenue and lower number in loss and cost that eventually determine what number will come up in their salary slip. Employers just have to deal with very big numbers, many of them. A set of numbers called CPF rates that affect everybody's pocket is adjusted accordingly based on current economic weather after discussions, debate and searching for a lower or higher number. Everybody else with longer string of numbers in their savings could afford to stare anxiously at those tiny weeny numbers scrolling furiously in the bottom of the television box - numbers that could send somebody to the emergency cardiac care unit. Numbers are quite everywhere here.

A set of numbers may be seen by many as the rudder to steer your future, especially when it comes to education. The romance with numbers starts in the lowest chain of the system, primary education. Just after primary four, students come to a decisive point where they're streamed to three different groups: EM1, EM2 or EM3 based on their academic performance, vis-à-vis numbers. The number after the EM may decide social affiliation in school, bestow pride or bring shame. Regrettably, the road less traveled - EM3, the slow lane for those incompatible with regular curriculum - may be considered as pariah by some parents, students, even teachers. Being parents in Singapore requires more than the usual arithmetic skill. You have to maintain a balance sheet between the number of As and another number representing the favorite school ranking, be it Secondary School or Junior College. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder Singapore has topped Competitiveness Index Performance on Quality of Math Education in WEF's Global Competitiveness Report 2001-2002. In another survey, the Third International Mathematics and Science study in 1999, Singaporean students were ranked first in maths achievement.

For those who make excellent pursuit in their number quest, their photos and their treasured numbers (and occasionally their family) could well go with headlines in the national newspaper front page. In my not-so-laid-back hometown, such news at best is buried in the inside page of a not-so-thick local newspaper.

The number shows go on as the audience becomes more mature. Once, I got a copy of the so-called The NUS (National University of Singapore) Undergraduate Student Feedback - the teachers' own marking report. Most of its content are long lists of modules offered, their respective lecturers and 3-digit-precision numbers between 1 and 5 representing mean ratings from students. While a student is marked objectively based on their explicit assignment, project and examination, a lecturer is subjectively given a number, a mark based on his/her implicit teaching methodology and content, or maybe some cast of personality, partly congeniality. Though I'm unable to gauge effectiveness of the numbers for the students' use, the book is supposed to help students in the module selection.

Such exercise also exists in lower level institution such as polytechnic where students are deemed to be less mature. It is a good thing when lecturers can receive reliable feedback from their students. But mere quantitative feedback brings the downside when teachers become too nice and too helpful to their student for the sake of getting a good number . This is obviously understandable, when the number may be used as one of indicator of the teacher's performance, which may lead to the number of months' of bonus received.

When more than 12 years of education subject people to respond to numbers in more sensitive way, you should be able to extrapolate the passionate rendezvous with numbers in the society, media and workplace.

Last year, I was deeply entertained by how the numbers became the ammunition in an exciting media war between two big media companies, MediaCorp and MediaWorks. It started with the battle of viewership ratings of their TV channels. Each came with grabbing-attention advertisements, boasting their respective numbers and claiming to be the number one channel. Two-full-center-page ad carried graphical charts with exaggerated proportion palisaded by row of numbers and few additional superlatives like largest, most and first. The viewership war subsided quietly, but till recently press releases and TV ads are still issued now and then to on new ratings, as if those numbers should be provided to keep the cardiac pulse high in TV channel's ECG monitor.

Then, recently, the battle was restarted with the readership of the companies' free newspapers: Today and Streats. Number in hundred thousands with bold typeface was splashed in a newspaper front page, bragging explosion in the number of readership. Immediately, the competitor's newspaper loaded a counter report to question the number - the survey methodology. Such jovial conversation about numbers, plus exchanges of report, counter report and counter of the counter report, crisscrossed between different type of media: newspaper, TV and radio. I lost count of how much news space and ad time slots have been wasted over a subject that most audience have absolutely no interest in. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe everybody else is enjoying the number game.

One funny thing about numbers is, most of the time, they don't work alone. They may play with each other like teeter-totter as the numbers in the media war. Others may conspire in more complex scenarios, sometimes logical sometimes as illogical as soap melodrama like Days of Our Lives. Decrease in number like GDP could increase number of divorces. Higher number of unemployment may provide the same effect. And when the number of babies declined and worse, below the prescribed number needed to sustain a nation's growth, government came up with a set of numbers for tax rebate, designed such that it would hopefully encourage baby production.

There are strings of numbers from the first day of school and to the last day of career - either after retrenchment or retirement - believed to bring prosperity, happiness, success and pride. And of course, there are always exceptions here and there, like those local entrepreneurs who managed to fight their way to add many zeros in their wealth without the magic numbers in their academics. But rag-to-riches or drop-out-to-big-boss tales are only for a few. Fortunately, those average persons, those without many As, those with smaller number in salary slip, those without the assumed magic numbers may still be hopeful by the power of the 4 numbers called 4D - lottery drawn every Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday.

Agreed social perception on the numbers, supported by abundant information and good accessibility attunes people's minds to react to numbers in a certain way. Media gives reinforcement in providing the impulse, many times economy-related. Every quarter medias report GDP followed by analyst talk, discussion and prediction of the next number and on how it interrelates a bunch of other numbers. Whether the next two consecutive numbers will fall below number zero - and give rise to recession. The appreciation towards number may be inquired from how The State Mother of The Numbers - Statistics Authority -delivers the numbers. Visit Singapore Department of Statistics web site and observe that all the important numbers presenting economic key indicator are shown straight away in the first page - GDP, CPI, DSPI, WTI, Total Trade, Unemployment rate and few other economic data. Compare that to homepages of US FedStat, UK National Statistics or Australian Bureau of Statistics. They have less numbers.

When the numbers come, each is forced to response. When kids fail to achieve good grades, parents may scramble for extra tuition, or take more extreme measures by putting pressure on the children, as shown in Jack Neo's movie I Not Stupid - satire on Singapore education. The trouble is when the response is unrealistic, in fact, many times purely emotional. If a number successfully opens a gap in human relationship then the social consequences of the number has to be examined. Worse, intense attachment to numbers invokes short-term response by crafting the methodology of measurement. It is when the numbers are manipulated, like Enron, WorldCom or dear Marta Stewart accounting. The numbers then become evil.

Numbers are inherently good. More than that, they're indispensable and unavoidable. They're the very foundation of logics, math, economy, science and many critical elements of functioning modern society. All great civilizations: Sumerian, Greek, Rome and Ottoman are mentioned in history with footnotes of their contribution to the progress of numbers. It is hard to imagine books without page numbers, apartments without numbers, clothing and shoes without sizes. Even Kings and Queens of Great Britain are numbered.

Numbers take indecisiveness away when a measure or decision has to be made, because one can only measure a quantitative entity. They remove ambiguity and fuzziness. They allow human beings to create standard and perform comparison - tools for the most basic mankind activity: making a choice.

But the numbers become a problem, if the representation overpowers the meaning. The numbers then enslave us, merely helping us in making micro-choice, nonetheless trapping us in that numerical habitual exercise. If we can no longer remember how to make a choice of how to make a choice, then the numbers are just as easy as one, two, three. And how different are we from those smart 5 years old (or even lower in Singapore) who jauntily recite numerals in a kindergarten class? When the framework of numbers fails, ones should not lose grip when the underlying meaning of the numbers are realized. To my Beijing buddy, I asked him once, "What will happened if they remove the station number?" He grinned, "Maybe, I'll be lost".