2026/03/15
2026/03/14
张望与聚焦 Gazing and Focusing
虽然时间比较紧，应该赶快前往 F1 Pit Building, 结束今天的招生演讲。面对围拢过来的学生和家长，那样热切而期待能够进入南洋理工大学中文系的心情，我还是继续回答了入学申请、面试、以及大家都感到焦虑的，人工智能对于未来职业发展、人生规划的影响。
刚上出租车，司机就问我：是不是要去看今年的Chingay Parade 妆艺大游行？可能不能直接到入口哦。
我一边喝光水瓶里的水，一边点头：“嗯嗯，OK。”
果然，被指挥交通的警察拦下停车。我走进人群，大家不是拎着饮料，就是捧着餐盒。有的全家老小出游，应和着沿路志愿者的欢迎声，一起共赴一场欢乐的盛典。
盛典从高挂的长串爆竹炸裂，火光四射中展开，是 1973 年第一次妆艺大游行的历史回响。当年为了弥补禁止民众燃放烟花爆竹，失去习俗年味，于是政府组织街头表演和花车大游行，在每年春节期间举行。
我跟着全场上万名观众高举荧光棒，欢迎尚达曼总统站在飞马花车上进场。前一天的主宾是黄循财总理。总统用英文和华语向大家祝福：新年快乐！心想事成！龙马精神！我纳闷周围的人怎么纷纷站起来？然后想想，即使看表演，也不能忽略这基本的礼仪啊。
代表四大族群的四位主持人，带动大家燃起高昂的热情。在圆形游行路线和可升降多层舞台，3000名表演者身着精心设计的服装，载歌载舞。跟着女主角 Little Star 穿梭在四大族群的节日（春节、开斋节、屠妖节和耶诞节），一起追寻今年的主题 “WISH”（愿望）。
华丽多彩的场面，璀璨绚烂的灯光，澎湃跃动的音响，令我开始有些“审美疲劳”了。我轻轻闭上眼睛, 想起上一次看妆艺大游行是2007年，在乌节路。观众坐在临时搭建的看台座椅，也有人站在围栏外，本来就繁荣兴旺的商街更是热闹沸腾。
观看从声音开始。
远远地先听到鼓声或音乐。人们伸长了脖子，向街道远处张望。慢慢地，表演队伍出现了。花车、舞龙、舞狮、鼓阵、舞群，一队接着一队，从远处移动到眼前。有些队伍在观众面前停下来表演一阵，然后继续往前走，渐渐远离视线。在队伍与队伍衔接的空间，人们再次张望。
像是看一幅慢慢展开的长卷，画面一段一段铺开展示，每一组表演队伍就像长卷中的一个段落。观众看到的，是不断向前推进的画面。那种“张望的观看”是：同一时间里，随观看者的位置不同而看到不同的内容。
今年的舞台集中在场地中央，表演者从周边进入会合，像一幅画框里的画面。身体、灯光、音乐和队形在同一个框架空间里排列和退散。360 度环绕着舞台的观众目光聚焦，座位高低不同，视角不同，但是看的是同一个时间里的相同节目。
从街道到舞台，从长卷到画框，妆艺大游行的表演结构形式已经改变。
街道上，它是流动的民间节庆，带着轻松随兴的气息，人们左右张望，等待下一个精彩。舞台上，它是宏大的文化叙事，要求秩序井然，节奏紧凑，观众同时聚焦，多元族群，多元文化，共同打造国家愿景。今年节目还加上了亚细安国家（印尼、菲律宾、泰国等）和日本的表演，将新加坡的国家愿景扩大到了亚洲友邦。
张望与聚焦，妆艺大游行从本土走到了国际。和马来西亚槟城的大旗鼓游行、柔佛新山的游神——世代相传、群体认同、持续再创造，有望成为联合国教科文组织认可的世界非物质文化遗产。
2026年3月14日，新加坡《联合早报》“上善若水”专栏
Gazing and Focusing
I Lo-fen
Although time was tight and I should have hurried to the F1 Pit Building
to wrap up today’s admissions talk, I still kept answering the students and
parents who had gathered around me. Their eagerness and hope of entering the
Chinese programme at Nanyang Technological University were so palpable. So I
continued responding to questions about applications, interviews, and, above
all, the anxiety everyone felt about how artificial intelligence might affect
future careers and life planning.
I had just gotten into a taxi when the driver asked, “Are you going to
watch this year’s Chingay Parade? The car may not be able to get directly to
the entrance.”
As I finished the water in my bottle, I nodded. “Mm-hmm, OK.”
Sure enough, the taxi was stopped by the police directing traffic. I
walked into the crowd. People were either carrying drinks or holding meal
boxes. Some families, young and old together, were out for the occasion,
responding to the volunteers’ cheers along the route as they made their way
toward a joyful grand celebration.
The festivities began with strings of firecrackers hanging high
overhead, bursting open in flashes of light—a historical echo of the very first
Chingay Parade in 1973. Back then, after the government banned the public from
setting off fireworks and firecrackers, the traditional festive atmosphere of
the New Year was diminished. To make up for that loss, street performances and
float parades were organized during the Lunar New Year each year.
Together with tens of thousands of spectators, I waved a glow stick high
in the air to welcome President Tharman, who arrived standing atop a Pegasus
float. The guest of honour the previous day had been Prime Minister Lawrence
Wong. The President offered New Year greetings in English and Chinese: “Happy
New Year! May all your wishes come true! May you be full of vitality and
spirit!” I wondered why so many people around me had suddenly stood up. Then I
thought: even when watching a performance, one cannot neglect basic etiquette.
Four hosts representing Singapore’s four major ethnic communities
stirred the audience into high excitement. Along the circular parade route and
on the multi-level stage that could be raised and lowered, 3,000 performers in
elaborately designed costumes sang and danced. Following the heroine, Little
Star, we moved through the festivals of the four ethnic groups—Chinese New
Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, and Christmas—in pursuit of this year’s theme,
“WISH.”
The gorgeous colours, dazzling lights, and surging sound eventually
began to give me a kind of aesthetic fatigue. I gently closed my eyes and
recalled the last time I watched the Chingay Parade, in 2007, on Orchard Road.
Spectators sat in temporary grandstands, while others stood outside the
railings. The already bustling commercial street was even more lively and
festive.
Watching began with sound.
From far away, one first heard drums or music. People stretched their
necks, gazing into the distance down the street. Gradually, the performing
groups came into view. Floats, dragon dances, lion dances, drum troupes, and
dance ensembles—one after another, they moved from afar into the foreground.
Some groups would stop in front of the audience for a while to perform, then
continue onward, slowly disappearing from sight. In the gaps between one group
and the next, people would once again gaze into the distance.
It was like watching a handscroll slowly unfold, the imagery revealed
section by section, each performance troupe like one segment in the scroll.
What the audience saw was an ever-advancing series of images. This kind of
“gazing spectatorship” meant that, at the same moment in time, different
viewers saw different things depending on where they stood.
This year, however, the stage was concentrated in the centre of the
venue, and performers entered from the periphery and converged there, like an
image framed within a picture frame. Bodies, lighting, music, and formations
were arranged and dispersed within the same framed spatial structure. The
audience, seated all around the stage in 360 degrees, focused their gaze.
Although their seats differed in height and angle, they were all watching the
same programme at the same moment in time.
From street to stage, from handscroll to frame, the structural form of
the Chingay Parade has changed.
On the street, it was a flowing folk festival with an easy, spontaneous
atmosphere. People looked left and right, waiting for the next exciting moment.
On the stage, it became a grand cultural narrative that demanded order, tight
rhythm, and collective focus. Diverse ethnic groups and diverse cultures joined
together to shape a national vision. This year’s programme also included
performances from ASEAN countries—such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Thailand—as well as Japan, extending Singapore’s national vision to its Asian
friends and partners.
Gazing and focusing: the Chingay Parade has moved from the local to the
international. Like Penang’s Big Flag Drum Procession in Malaysia and Johor
Bahru’s Chingay procession—traditions passed down across generations, rooted in
collective identity, and sustained through continuous reinvention—it may well
one day be recognized by UNESCO as part of the world’s intangible cultural
heritage.
March 14, 2026, “Shang Shan Ruo Shui” column,
Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore
2026/02/28
AI 都会总结了，我们是否不必看书？AI can summarize everything—do we no longer need to read books?
过年前整理电脑的文件夹，发现一张多年前随手拍的照片。
到今年七月，我移居新加坡整整二十年。在这不算短的岁月里，我唯一一次看到有人在地铁上看书，而且还是个小孩子。他低垂着头，完全沉浸在那本厚厚的书里，看样子可能是一本小说。我忍不住拿起手机，拍下了这难得的画面。
车厢在轨道上晃动，隆隆作响。他的右腿叠在左腿上，膝头的书似乎不容易被他小小的右手手指和掌心稳住。身后窗外透进来的光落在书面上，密密麻麻的英文字。像是被吸进了那本书的世界里，只有在翻页的时候，他的身体才稍微动了一下。
这个姿势我太熟悉了。
曾几何时，我几乎忘了在公共场所那屏蔽周遭，乐在其中的感觉。
现在网路搜索还带着 AI 模式，找一本书，AI 直接总结书的内容。比如你查《红楼梦》，AI告诉你：“原名《石头记》，是中国古典四大名著之首，由清代作家曹雪芹所著。该书以贾、史、王、薛四大家族的兴衰为背景，通过贾宝玉、林黛玉与薛宝钗的爱情婚姻悲剧，展现了封建社会末期的社会全景及其走向灭亡的必然趋势。” 你看了这段总结，简明扼要，头头是道，比维基百科还快让你理解，于是你会觉得自己已经看完了整本《红楼梦》了吗？“展现了封建社会末期的社会全景及其走向灭亡的必然趋势。” 这是曹雪芹写《红楼梦》的初衷吗？还是 AI 大语言模型集合了一些人的共同看法？抑或是，这只不过是 AI 随机排列组合生成出的一段话？
这就触及了一个根本的问题：看书，究竟是为了什么？
如果看书只是为了"获取书中的信息"，对于结构固定、有标准答案的书，用 AI 来为我们总结的确效率高。但与此同时，直接从 AI 获取书中的信息，也剥夺了我们看书的乐趣。
看书不只是资讯/知识的视觉输入，无论是电子书还是纸本书，和听音频、看视频很大的不同，是输入过程的掌控感。音频的旋律节奏和视频的影像转接都是制作者先规划或计算好的。即使我们倍速快转或放慢，我们接收的，还是原来结构的压缩或拉长，还是在既有的框架中。看书呢？我们可以匆匆翻阅；可以细细品味，让脑海浮现的反应带动我们感受书的内容。
书是什么？书是用语言或图像搭建成可以进入的时空。看书，是用自己的脚步和节奏进入那个时空。在那里，看见自己此生未必能亲眼看见的风景；想象自己未必能亲身经历的人生。在那里，和超越边际的思维碰撞;和生命底层的情感共鸣。走一走，看一看，然后带着什么东西——或许说不清是什么——走出来。
现实不会马上改变，然而书也许滴水穿石，渐渐渗透进我们的记忆，让我们因为认同而转换观看的视角。英语有句话说：“You are
what you eat” ，意思是：你吃什么就会影响你的身体健康。我们也可以说：“You are
what you read。” 你读什么书，就会塑造你成为怎样的人。那么，也许你会反问：如果我根本不看书，难道我就不能说是一个完整的人吗？书籍出版比互联网和 AI 还滞后呢。
我无意把看书这件事情当成多么崇高、了不起的行为。看书与否，是每个人的自由选择。我想表达的是：看书是试错成本很低的一种“投资”。在信息爆炸的当下，我们不一定要大量阅读很多书，而是要知道：除了五音五色、除了被动接受，我们可以搭配互联网和 AI，协助找到陪伴我们独处时随便翻一翻就会觉得心安的那本书。
地铁上的那个孩子，我不知道他在读的哪一本书。但我记得他翻页的动作：很慢，像是舍不得，又像是在给自己一点时间，让刚刚读过的字，再多停留一会儿。
那个动作里，有某种无法被总结的东西。
2026年2月28日新加坡《联合早报》”上善若水”专栏
AI can summarize everything—do we no longer need to read books?
I Lo-fen
Before the Lunar New Year, while organizing the folders on my computer,
I came across a photo I had taken casually many years ago.
By this July, it will have been exactly twenty years since I moved to
Singapore. In these not-so-short years, I have seen someone reading a book on
the MRT only once—and it was a child. He lowered his head, completely immersed
in a thick book that looked like a novel. I couldn’t resist taking out my phone
to capture that rare scene.
The carriage swayed and rumbled along the tracks. His right leg rested
over his left. The book on his knee did not seem easy to steady with the small
fingers and palm of his right hand. Light from the window behind him fell onto
the pages, dense with English words. He seemed to be drawn into the world of
the book; only when he turned a page did his body move slightly.
That posture felt so familiar to me.
There was a time when I had almost forgotten the feeling of shutting out
the surroundings in a public place and losing myself in a book.
Today, even online searches come with an AI mode. When you look up a
book, AI immediately summarizes its content. For example, if you search for Dream
of the Red Chamber, AI will tell you: “Originally titled The Story of
the Stone, it is the foremost of China’s Four Great Classical Novels,
written by the Qing dynasty author Cao Xueqin. Against the backdrop of the rise
and fall of the Jia, Shi, Wang, and Xue families, the novel portrays the tragic
love and marriage of Jia Baoyu, Lin Daiyu, and Xue Baochai, presenting a
panoramic view of late feudal society and its inevitable decline.”
The summary is concise and well organized—faster than Wikipedia in
helping you grasp the gist. After reading it, would you feel as if you had
finished the entire novel? “Presenting a panoramic view of late feudal society
and its inevitable decline.” Was that truly Cao Xueqin’s original intention in
writing the novel? Or is it a synthesis of commonly held views gathered by a
large language model? Or perhaps it is simply a passage generated through
probabilistic arrangement?
This brings us to a fundamental question: what, exactly, do we read for?
If reading is merely about “obtaining information,” then for books with
fixed structures and standard answers, AI summaries are indeed efficient. Yet
obtaining information directly from AI also deprives us of the pleasure of
reading.
Reading is not simply the visual intake of information or knowledge.
Whether an e-book or a printed book, reading differs greatly from listening to
audio or watching video. In audio, melody and rhythm are prearranged by the
creator; in video, transitions are calculated in advance. Even if we speed up
or slow down playback, we are still receiving a compressed or stretched version
of an already fixed structure.
But with a book? We can skim quickly; we can savor slowly, allowing the
responses arising in our minds to guide how we experience the text.
What is a book? A book is a time and space constructed through language
or images—one that we can enter. Reading is stepping into that time and space
at our own pace. There, we see landscapes we may never witness in this
lifetime; we imagine lives we may never personally experience. There, we
collide with thoughts that transcend boundaries; we resonate with emotions at
the deepest layers of life. We walk through, look around, and come out carrying
something—perhaps something we cannot quite name.
Reality does not change overnight. Yet books may work like water
dripping through stone, gradually permeating memory and shifting our
perspective through identification. There is an English saying: “You are what
you eat,” meaning that what you consume shapes your physical health. We might
also say: “You are what you read.” What you read shapes the kind of person you
become.
Perhaps you would counter: if I do not read books at all, can I not
still be a complete person? After all, publishing seems slower than the
internet and AI.
I do not intend to present reading as something lofty or noble. Whether
to read is a personal choice. What I wish to say is this: reading is a form of
investment with a very low cost of trial and error. In an age of information
overload, we do not necessarily need to read a large number of books. Rather,
we need to know that beyond the constant noise and passive consumption, we can
use the internet and AI to help us find that one book we can flip through in
solitude and feel at peace.
I do not know which book the child on the MRT was reading. But I
remember the way he turned the page—slowly, as if reluctant, as if giving
himself a little more time for the words he had just read to linger a while
longer.
In that gesture, there was something that cannot be summarized.
February 28, 2026
“Shang Shan Ruo Shui” Column, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore
2026/02/14
水饺· 荞麦面· 年糕汤 Dumplings · Soba Noodles · Rice Cake Soup
过年，你吃什么？
中国人说：水饺。
日本人说：荞麦面。
韩国人说：年糕汤。
三种食物，看似普通，却藏着三种关于时间、人生与幸福的期许。
2025年的最后一天，在东京度过。第二天清晨要飞北海道，心想应该早一点吃饭，早一点睡觉——这跨年夜，怎么好好慰劳一年的努力工作？要吃顿大餐？吃点当地风味？
百货公司外走廊、大堂到地下食品街，都在卖荞麦面。哦，对了，日本人在元旦新年前夕，要吃“跨年荞麦面”（年越しそば）。可是我住在旅店，没有厨房和餐具。
于是找餐厅。结果餐厅不是提前打烊，就是根本没营业。连旅店楼下那家连锁饺子拉面店也熄灯。（还想着日式煎饺也是饺子，有点过春节的意思）。难不成，要吃速食汉堡炸鸡？
开始想念在台北时，母亲包的水饺。
案板上撒着面粉，擀面杖来回滚动，母亲亲手擀的水饺皮特别Q弹。除夕夜子时的水饺是元宝，有的加一小块年糕，意味吃到的人新的一年会长高。有的塞了一枚洗刷干净的一元铜板，吃到的人可以多领100元压岁钱！为了能“发财”，我和弟弟妹妹拼命抢着吃，顾不得烫嘴，惹得大人哈哈笑！听到邻居家的鞭炮声，才匆匆放下碗筷跑去门口放鞭炮——这吉时可要好好把握呀！
长高、发财，把期待握在手心，水饺皮对折按捏，把愿望包进元宝。华人过年讲究一个“增”字：增旺、增福、增寿。所有的不如意，随着串串火光四射的炸裂鞭炮烟消云散，日子，总会越来越好。
日本人现在只过阳历新年，不求“增”，而是“断”。
一碗热腾腾的荞麦面，汤头简单朴素。夹起细长的面条，轻轻咬断，慢慢咀嚼。这一“断”，把积累的烦恼、焦虑与遗憾，全部留在旧年。“跨年荞麦面”要在午夜12点之前吃完，仿佛与自己完成一场无声的和解。
我在旅店边吃打包回来的天妇罗和海鲜沙拉，一边看电视播放的红白歌唱大赛，好多久违的歌手啊，我都几乎忘了曾经那么喜欢他们；连主持人之一的绫濑遥的脸孔也陌生了。临近12点，没有舞台上激情喧哗的倒数计时，画面轮播着京都清水寺、东京浅草寺等庙宇的住持祝祷、击打铜钟，以及双手合十，双眼微闭的信众们。
放下过去，温柔告别。新的一年，轻装上路。
我也曾经在韩国过春节，大年初一吃的是年糕汤（떡국）。象征纯净长寿的白色年糕，切成钱币似的薄片，清水浸泡。大骨汤里加牛肉熬煮，然后放进年糕片，起锅前倒入鸡蛋液，撒些葱花和海苔丝。
喝完浓稠的年糕汤，就长大了一岁，所以韩国人会用“你喝了几碗年糕汤”来代指年龄。
水饺、荞麦面、年糕汤，三种过年食物，三种人生智慧：增添理想，截断执念，迎接清新的未来。
你家过年，吃什么呢？
2026年 2月14日，新加坡《联合早报》 “上善若水”专栏
Dumplings · Soba Noodles · Rice Cake Soup
I Lo-fen
What do you eat for the New Year?
The Chinese say: dumplings.
The Japanese say: soba noodles.
The Koreans say: rice cake soup.
Three kinds of food, seemingly ordinary, yet each carries a different
hope about time, life, and happiness.
I spent the last day of 2025 in Tokyo. Early the next morning, I was to
fly to Hokkaido. I thought I should eat early and sleep early—but on New Year’s
Eve, how should one properly reward a year of hard work? A grand feast? Local
specialties?
Along the corridors outside the department stores, in the lobbies, and
down in the basement food halls, soba noodles were everywhere. Of course—on New
Year’s Eve, the Japanese eat “Toshikoshi Soba” (year-crossing noodles). But I
was staying in a hotel, with no kitchen and no tableware.
So I looked for a restaurant. Most had closed early, and some were not
open at all. Even the chain dumpling-and-ramen shop downstairs in my hotel had
gone dark. (I had thought that Japanese pan-fried gyoza might at least resemble
dumplings, giving me a hint of Spring Festival.)
Was I really going to end up with fast-food burgers and fried chicken?
I began to miss the dumplings my mother made in Taipei.
Flour dusted the chopping board, the rolling pin moved back and forth.
The dumpling wrappers she rolled by hand were especially springy. The dumplings
eaten at midnight on Lunar New Year’s Eve were shaped like gold ingots. Some
contained a small piece of rice cake, meaning whoever found it would grow
taller in the coming year. Some hid a carefully washed one-dollar coin; whoever
found it would receive an extra hundred dollars in lucky money! To “get rich,”
my siblings and I would scramble to eat as many as possible, ignoring the heat
that burned our mouths, to the roaring laughter of the adults. Hearing the
crackle of firecrackers from the neighbors, we would hastily put down our bowls
and rush outside—this auspicious moment must not be missed!
To grow taller, to become wealthier—holding expectations in the palm of
one’s hand, folding the dumpling wrapper in half, sealing wishes inside the
golden ingot. For Chinese families, the New Year is about “increase”:
increasing prosperity, increasing blessings, increasing longevity. All
misfortunes vanish in the brilliant bursts of firecrackers. Life will surely
get better and better.
The Japanese now celebrate only the solar New Year. They do not seek
“increase,” but rather “cutting off.”
A steaming bowl of soba, the broth simple and plain. Lift the long, thin
noodles, gently bite them through, chew slowly. With that single “cut,” the
accumulated worries, anxieties, and regrets are left behind in the old year.
“Toshikoshi Soba” must be finished before midnight, as though completing a
silent reconciliation with oneself.
In my hotel room, I ate takeout tempura and seafood salad while watching
the Kohaku Uta Gassen on television. So many singers I once loved—had I really
almost forgotten them? Even the face of one of the hosts, Haruka Ayase, felt
strangely unfamiliar. As midnight approached, there was no boisterous
countdown. Instead, the screen showed temple abbots at Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto
and Senso-ji in Tokyo offering prayers, striking the great bells, while
worshippers stood with hands clasped and eyes gently closed.
Letting go of the past, bidding it farewell with tenderness. In the new
year, travel light.
I have also spent the Lunar New Year in Korea. On the first day, we ate
rice cake soup (tteokguk). The white rice cakes, symbolizing purity and
longevity, were sliced into coin-shaped pieces and soaked in clear water. Beef
was simmered in bone broth, then the rice cake slices were added. Before
serving, beaten egg was poured in, and chopped scallions and shredded seaweed
were sprinkled on top.
After finishing a bowl of thick rice cake soup, one grows a year
older—so Koreans sometimes ask, “How many bowls of rice cake soup have you
had?” to refer to someone’s age.
Dumplings, soba noodles, rice cake soup—three New Year dishes, three
kinds of wisdom for life: add to your aspirations, cut off your attachments,
and welcome a fresh future.
What does your family eat for the New Year?
February 14, 2026
“Shangshan Ruoshui” Column, Lianhe Zaobao,
Singapore
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