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AFP - Getty Images
Six-year-old quadruplets from Shenzhen in southern China had their hair shaved into various numbers before they went to school for the first time, Agence France Presse reports.
Their parents decided to mark them with 1, 2, 3, 4 on their heads — in the order that they were born — to make it easier for teachers and classmates to tell them apart.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This picture was taken on Sept. 3, 2012 and made available to NBC News on Sept. 6.
Quadruplet boys in China have had numbers shaved into their hair based on their birth order so that people at their school can tell them apart. TODAY.com's Dara Brown reports.
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I wonder which is the evil one? My money is on #3
#2 looks shifty to me - he's the only one not looking down.
my question is, why use English numbers and not Chinese characters??!
They are Arabic numerals, actually.
Asian countries WILL typically use Arabic numerals for just about everything - they are something that everybody worldwide understands. I was in Japan for 3 years - on just about every product, billboard, store, and book, numbers are in Arabic numerals.
It is actually very common in a multilingual bazaar to pull out a calculator and type out numbers to basically say, "pay this" "this item is this much".
EXCELLENT QUESTION! I can't believe more people (including me) didn't notice that!
They are spies.
They are young enough to barely pay attention to thier hair. Do they look traumatized? When they get a bit older they may notice and object, time to stop. In the meantime it is probably reassuring to the children that people in the school quickly and easily who they are.
Stand by for them to shave their heads to screw with their parents.
Not a nice thing to do. It would be much simpler to just make a stick-on that indicates their names or pin it on. Some parents do nutty things....and this is akin to almost child abuse as they will be teased relentlessly as they can't take it off after school!
How humilating to those young children. Did the parents ever consider name tags?
Terrible, just terrible!
And did you consider that the kids could just switch name tags???
Nice way to emotionally scar your kids on their first day of school.
"I will pick up the hook.
You will see something more.
Four Chings. And I call them
Ching One thru Ching Four.
These Chings will not bite you.
They want to have fun."
Then, out of the box
Came Ching Four, Three, Two and One!
And they ran to us fast.
They said. "How do you do?
Would you like to high five
With Ching Four, One, Three and Two?"
(Apologies to Dr. Seuss!)
@ itsamaadworld, did you mean ching or chink.....
cool dude...i am sure the good doctor would have loved it.
btw, please overlook the stupidity of 1721548, apparently too many numbers have impaired his ability to appreciate cute and then violate cute with that chink in his brain.
cha-ching!!!
So, will MSNBC get itself suspended for this? "They all look alike" thing. Funny as hell, they use asians in this as an example. I've always said this.
Don't those #'s represent gang affiliation? I think they are starting an organized crime and the school should ban those #'s. The parents should be questioned. If the answer is not satisfactory, torture them by making them eat McDonalds.
I'm a multiple and I think it's cute. For people who aren't "multiples", you don't understand!
No one understand the closeness of multiples and I'm sure they don't feel like idiots. Why is anyone commenting on China or being Chinese. If they were from India, does that make a difference!?
Yes because the #'s would have been harder to read.
Of course you can't tell them apart ! There Chinese after all ! I suppose its not practical to do that to the whole population because how do you carve the number 1.3 billion on the most recent one born there.......
I thought they were good in math. Why are they out of order?
maybe they aren't...they are just referencing the 4,132 stupid comments being made about them.
They have to be Chinese names:
1= Won...2=Tu...3=Tree...4=Pho
3= Twee, not tree. Remember, they can't pronounce pronouns or "R"'s.
I was just taught that the other day. My bad. Thanks for the edumacation and backup support!
I just can't laugh enough. This is so funny. And to think I didn't start this hilarious article. YES, THEY DO ALL LOOK ALIKE!!! LMAO!!!!
Funny, they say the same thing about "round eyes".
so.. you bought a catolog wh*re ehh?? Got no balls it shows. LMAO@U
Good idea...but it would "stink" to be #2!!!
They are too cute!!! I think a small tatoo would be better - no where that would show maybe on the bottom of the foot or something. They are so cute!!
Maybe it's just me, but I would think about different OUTFITS before shaving their heads. Or a name tag. But whatever, to each his own, right?
They're wearing school uniforms and can switch name tags....
When my identical twin boys were first born I painted the toenails on just one boy bright red so that I could tell them apart when they came out of the bathtub - by the time they were 3 months old we knew who was who but not at first. My sons show no distress from the oft told story of the painted toenails!!
Octomom with 8 kids would have 1-8
Funny
Charlie Chan beat them to it many years ago.
1.) Why are they using Arabic numbers instead of Chinese characters?
2.) Wouldn't it be more creative to just shave a small notch in each hairdo?
3.) I know they are wearing school uniforms, but would a button on the shoulder strap cause all order to be disrupted in the school? As long as Mr. Pink doesn't raise any objections ("Reservoir Dogs").
4.) Name tags, dog tags, paper bracelets, bows, ties, ribbons, eye shadow, there must be 1000 other ways to tag people than numbers on their skull -- unless those are the kids actual names - Wan, Tou, Tree, and Fo. (Oh...I see justme-3094663 beat me to it!!!)
My favorite children's book, Cat in the Hat, had Thing 1 and Thing 2, now here comes Thing 3 and Thing 4. Awesome. Now lets wreck some havoc cuties.
@Mike Fields; Mozie was correct in saying that if they had been girls they might have been aborted. In their culture, it is almost paramount and very high on the list to have a boy to carry on the family name hence MANY female babies are aborted. Because of this, their ratio of boys to girls is extremely unbalanced.
@Sonshine Christian
Mozie doesn't know her *ss from a hole in the ground...and apparently neither do you. Please, for God's sake try know something, at least a little something, before you show just how stupid you are. You are using stereotypical comments that are not true, about Chinese abortion amounts, your gender disproportions, etc...geez, grow up...if you want to comment, go learn reality, not made up stupidity...please!
The story is about the haircuts and the identity of the children, not about a religious commentary on abortion laws...it is about kids.