乾隆宸翰何真假 How Genuine Is Qianlong’s Imperial Calligraphy?

 

乾隆宸翰何真假

衣若芬

 

走进博物馆，看见一幅古画，上面题着诗，旁边钤满大大小小的印章。许多人第一时间会问：这是不是乾隆皇帝亲笔？

这个问题看似简单，却未必容易回答。

前些时候在台北故宫看展览，面对一件传为乾隆御题的书画作品，我忽然想到：如果今天有人工智能能够百分之百模仿乾隆的笔迹，我们还能一眼分辨真假吗？而如果不能，那么我们究竟在寻找什么样的“真”？

乾隆皇帝是中国历史上留下题跋最多的皇帝。有人开玩笑，说他是“盖章狂魔”，或者是“弹幕达人”。然而，关于乾隆题字的真假问题，却一直存在。

故宫收藏中，有些作品上的御题被认为出自乾隆亲笔；有些则可能由宫廷朝臣代笔。对于书法鉴定家来说，这当然是重要课题。用笔提顿习惯是否一致？线条是否自然？结体章法是否符合乾隆书风？这些都成为判断的依据。

可是，当我站在展柜前凝视那些文字时，却觉得问题似乎不止于此。

即使某一段题字不是乾隆亲手所写，它是否就因此失去价值？

在现代人的观念里，作品往往与作者紧密绑定。我们推崇原创，重视亲笔，相信独一无二的创作主体。因此，一旦发现作品出自代笔，便容易产生失落感。然而，在传统中国宫廷文化中，事情未必如此。

一件御题作品的形成，往往涉及复杂的生产过程。构思诗文、书写题跋、装裱制作、内府收藏……最终呈现在我们面前的，并不是单一个人的劳动成就，而是一整套宫廷机制共同运作的结果。

换言之，所谓“乾隆宸翰”，有时候代表的不只是乾隆的手笔，而是乾隆的意志。从这个角度来看，真假便出现了新的层次。

真，不只是笔迹的真。

真，也是制度的真、时代的真、文化语境的真。

我们以为自己在观看文物，其实也在观看一套关于文物的叙事。

从文图学的角度来看，这一点尤其明显。

一件书画作品从来不是单纯的图像。画面、题跋、印章、装裱、收藏记录、展览说明，共同构成一个可供阅读的文本系统。观众所理解的“真迹”，往往不是来自某一个笔画，而是来自这一整套文图关系。

因此，当我们讨论乾隆宸翰真假时，实际上讨论的已经不只是书法鉴定，而是关于真实性的文化想像。

有趣的是，这个问题在人工智能时代显得格外尖锐。

今天的生成式人工智能能够模仿画风、模仿文体，甚至模仿历史人物的书法。如果输入足够多的乾隆书迹样本，也许未来真的能够生成一幅几可乱真的“乾隆御笔”。

到那时，真假又该如何界定？

如果一首诗是人工智能根据《御制诗集》学习后写出的；一幅字是根据乾隆书风生成的，那么它究竟是假作，还是另一种形式的再创造？

这个问题听起来很现代，却意外地又让我想到清代宫廷。

因为所谓“原创作者”的观念，本来就是近代以来逐渐形成的。乾隆时代的大量文化生产，早已建立在人与人协作的机制之上。今天的人机协作创作，不过是在新的技术条件下重新提出相似的问题。

于是，我忽然觉得自己寻找的答案已经改变了。

我不再急着判断那几个字是不是乾隆亲手所写。我更感兴趣的是：为什么我们如此在意它是否亲笔？

也许，真正值得思考的，不是乾隆宸翰究竟是真是假，而是我们如何定义“真实”。真实可以是一段笔墨留下的痕迹，也可以是一种时代精神的延续；可以是一位作者的亲手书写，也可以是一套文化机制的共同创造。

当人工智能不断挑战原创与作者的边界时，乾隆留下的那些题诗与印章，仿佛从历史深处发出回响——它提醒我们，真实性从来不是单纯的技术判断，而是一种文化选择。

因此，乾隆宸翰何真假？

或许答案并不在光学分析仪器下，也不在专家鉴定报告里。

答案更可能藏在我们观看它的目光之中。因为每一个时代，都在重新定义什么是真，什么是假；而每一次定义，也都映照着那个时代对于历史、作者与自我的理解。

2026年8月15日，新加坡《联合早报》“上善若水”专栏

How Genuine Is Qianlong’s Imperial Calligraphy?
I Lo-fen

Walk into a museum and encounter an old painting inscribed with a poem and covered with seals of all sizes. Many people’s first question is: Was this really written by the Qianlong Emperor himself?

The question sounds simple, but it is not necessarily easy to answer.

Some time ago, while visiting an exhibition at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, I stood before a painting and calligraphy work said to bear an imperial inscription by Qianlong. A thought suddenly occurred to me: if artificial intelligence today could reproduce Qianlong’s handwriting with one hundred percent accuracy, would we still be able to distinguish the genuine from the fake at a glance? And if not, what kind of “authenticity” are we actually looking for?

The Qianlong Emperor left more inscriptions and colophons than any other emperor in Chinese history. People sometimes joke that he was a “seal-stamping fanatic” or a master of “bullet comments.” Yet questions about the authenticity of Qianlong’s inscriptions have persisted for a long time.

Among works in palace museum collections, some imperial inscriptions are considered to have been written by Qianlong himself, while others may have been executed on his behalf by court officials. For connoisseurs of calligraphy, this is naturally an important issue. Are the habits of brush pressure, lifting, and turning consistent? Are the lines natural? Do the structure of individual characters and the overall composition conform to Qianlong’s calligraphic style? All of these become criteria for judgement.

Yet as I stood before the display case and gazed at those words, I felt that the question went beyond this.

Even if a particular inscription was not written by Qianlong’s own hand, does it therefore lose its value?

In the modern understanding of art, a work is often closely bound to its author. We prize originality, value autograph works, and believe in the uniqueness of the creative individual. Once we discover that a work was written by someone else on the purported author’s behalf, disappointment easily follows. Yet things were not necessarily understood in this way within the culture of the traditional Chinese court.

The making of an imperially inscribed work often involved a complex process: composing the poem or text, writing the inscription, mounting and producing the finished object, and incorporating it into the imperial collection. What finally appears before us is therefore not the achievement of a single individual, but the result of an entire court system working together.

In other words, “Qianlong’s imperial calligraphy” sometimes represents not only Qianlong’s hand, but Qianlong’s will. Seen from this perspective, the distinction between genuine and fake acquires new layers.

Authenticity is not only the authenticity of handwriting.

It is also the authenticity of an institution, an era, and a cultural context.

We think we are looking at an artefact, but in fact we are also looking at a narrative constructed around that artefact.

From the perspective of Text and Image Studies, this becomes especially evident.

A work of painting and calligraphy is never simply an image. The painting, inscriptions, seals, mounting, collection records, and exhibition labels together form a textual system that can be read. What viewers understand as an “authentic work” often derives not from a single brushstroke, but from this entire network of relationships between text and image.

Thus, when we discuss whether Qianlong’s imperial calligraphy is genuine or fake, we are in fact discussing more than the authentication of calligraphy. We are discussing a cultural imagination of authenticity.

What makes the question especially interesting is that it becomes particularly acute in the age of artificial intelligence.

Today, generative artificial intelligence can imitate painting styles, literary styles, and even the calligraphy of historical figures. If supplied with enough samples of Qianlong’s handwriting, perhaps one day it really will be able to generate a “Qianlong imperial inscription” almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

How, then, should we define what is genuine and what is fake?

If a poem is written by artificial intelligence after learning from the Imperially Composed Poems, and a piece of calligraphy is generated according to Qianlong’s style, is it a forgery, or another form of re-creation?

The question sounds thoroughly modern, yet it unexpectedly brings me back to the Qing imperial court.

The very idea of the “original author,” after all, took shape gradually in the modern era. Much of the cultural production of Qianlong’s time was already based on mechanisms of human collaboration. Today’s human–AI collaborative creation merely raises similar questions again under new technological conditions.

At that moment, I realised that the answer I had been seeking had changed.

I was no longer in a hurry to determine whether those characters had been written by Qianlong’s own hand. What interested me more was this: why do we care so deeply whether they were?

Perhaps what truly deserves our attention is not whether Qianlong’s imperial calligraphy is ultimately genuine or fake, but how we define “authenticity.” Authenticity may be the trace left by brush and ink; it may also be the continuation of the spirit of an age. It may be writing executed by the author’s own hand; it may also be something collectively created by an entire cultural system.

As artificial intelligence continues to challenge the boundaries of originality and authorship, the poems and seals left by Qianlong seem to echo from deep within history. They remind us that authenticity has never been merely a technical judgement, but a cultural choice.

So, how genuine is Qianlong’s imperial calligraphy?

Perhaps the answer does not lie beneath an optical analyser, nor in an expert authentication report.

More likely, it is hidden in the way we look at it. Every age redefines what is true and what is false; and every such definition reflects that age’s understanding of history, authorship, and itself.

15 August 2026, “Shang Shan Ruo Shui” column, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore.

 

汇流之外 Beyond Crosscurrents

 

走进任何一个关于东西文化、丝绸之路、美术工艺的文物展览，必然遇见"交流""融合""文明互鉴"这类词语。文物本来就是混杂的，工艺本来就是流动的，艺术从来不在封闭的容器里生长——这些都是实存的，也都不奇特。那么，一个以"Crosscurrents"（汇流）为名的展览，还能告诉我们什么？

在新加坡亚洲文明博物馆（Asian Civilisations Museum，ACM）的《汇流：卢浮宫的莫卧儿、萨法维与奥斯曼艺术珍品》（Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre）特展，第一眼看到的是一只十六世纪奥斯曼帝国的玉杯。

通体沉稳的黑绿色，杯身以金丝嵌出繁复纹饰，工匠在玉面凿出浅槽，以两种镶嵌技法填入金丝，制造出层次感。花形开光中，框住每一粒红宝石。开光之间，蔓延着卷叶纹。展签记录它曾属于法国国王路易十四，收藏于凡尔赛宫，后来进入卢浮宫。

我的视线在展签最后一行停下来：红宝石经近年分析，认为来自缅甸。

缅甸？原来和东南亚有缘分啊。

历史上，亚美尼亚商人掌握着缅甸红宝石的主要贸易路线，将宝石通过孟加拉湾，进入莫卧儿帝国（印度），萨法维（伊朗）与奥斯曼（土耳其）。这个玉杯在展场开宗明义，呈现了汇流的主题。

细看杯身的花形开光与卷叶纹。这套图式语言贯穿大半个展览：抄本的装饰页、书页的题花、清真寺的门拱轮廓。

我想起去年底在上海浦东美术馆举办的同类展览《图案的奇迹》（The Wonder of Patterns: Masterpieces from India, Iran and the Ottoman World from the Musée du Louvre），以约300件卢浮宫藏品呈现伊斯兰艺术的美学成就。ACM的策展团队将自身的30件藏品加入展览，与卢浮宫的100件借展文物并置陈列，于是，故事的视角从西方转向了东南亚。

策展，就是一种立场和价值判断。

波斯对马来文学的影响（Persian Influence on Malay Letters）展区里，并排陈列了奥斯曼土耳其（1752年）与马来西亚丁加奴（18-19世纪）两部《古兰经》（Quran）。奥斯曼的版本装帧精整，是便于记诵的标准形制；丁加奴的版本在借鉴这套版式的同时，发展出一种本地独特的"花卉书法"（floral calligraphy）——阿拉伯文字母在抄写者的笔下，逐渐转化为植物的形态，字母与花草之间的边界被有意模糊。我们还看到19世纪的马来亚《圣纪颂》（Kitab Mawlid）也印证了这一点：书页上方的尖拱题花与卷叶藤蔓，与玉杯杯身的开光共享同一套图式语言——只是载体从金玉变成了纸页。

在文图学（Text and Image Studies）的视角下，这构成了一个具体的论题：卷叶纹与拱形开光，玉器和抄本，卷叶纹更进一步渗入文字本身，成为书法的一部分。奥斯曼的书法彰显文字的神圣权威；丁加奴的花卉书法，是文字在图像化过程中找到的另一种尊严——而这种秩序，在东南亚的语境里生长出来。

另一个展区里，一座来自苏门答腊西部的清真寺模型也吸引了我的注意。八角形开放式柱廊撑起宽大的多层坡屋顶，上层收为较小的亭台，顶端是一个洋葱形圆顶，收尖为塔刹。坡屋顶是东南亚本地的建筑传统；洋葱形圆顶则是后来引入的伊斯兰形式。两者并存于同一座建筑里，不是折衷，而是一个社群主动选择的视觉表达：我们在宽阔的伊斯兰文明之中，同时也在这片土地上。

汇流，当然发生了。但汇流之后，接收的一方做了什么，才是更值得细思的问题。丁加奴的抄写者把字母写成花草，苏门答腊的清真寺模型建造者在洋葱顶下保留了坡屋顶，这些都不是被动接收的痕迹，而是在地的主体性（local agency）。

现场展柜一框接一框、主题接主题。它能并置，能提示，但持续编辑与创造，最终的连贯性，必须由每一个观众去完成。

离开展厅前，我再一次走回那只玉杯前。黑绿色的玉面在聚光灯下透出沉稳的光泽，描金深浅有致。那些宝石的颜色，随着我的目光偏移，或鲜红、或艳紫。500年，东南亚早就在这件文物里了。只是需要站在这里，仔细端详，反映自我，才能看见。

汇流，是过去发生的事。汇流之外，是今天的观者，带着自己的位置与记忆，重新读出文物里那些未被命名的在场。

 

2026年8月1日，新加坡《联合早报》“上善若水”专栏

 

Beyond Crosscurrents

I Lo-fen

Walk into almost any exhibition of cultural relics devoted to East–West encounters, the Silk Road, or arts and crafts, and one is bound to encounter terms such as “exchange,” “fusion,” and “mutual learning among civilisations.” Cultural objects have always been hybrid; craftsmanship has always travelled; art has never grown inside a sealed container. All of this is historically real, and none of it is especially surprising. What, then, can an exhibition entitled “Crosscurrents” still tell us?

At the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) in Singapore, the special exhibition Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre opens with a sixteenth-century Ottoman jade cup.

The vessel is a composed, deep blackish green. Intricate patterns are inlaid across its surface in gold wire. The craftsman carved shallow grooves into the jade and filled them with gold using two different inlay techniques, creating a sense of depth and layering. Each ruby is framed within a floral cartouche, while scrolling foliage spreads between the cartouches. The label records that the cup once belonged to King Louis XIV of France, was kept at the Palace of Versailles, and later entered the Louvre.

My eyes paused at the final line of the label: recent analysis suggests that the rubies came from Myanmar.

Myanmar? So the cup had a connection with Southeast Asia after all.

Historically, Armenian merchants controlled the principal trade routes for Burmese rubies, transporting the gemstones across the Bay of Bengal into the Mughal Empire in India, Safavid Iran, and the Ottoman Empire in Türkiye. Placed at the beginning of the exhibition, this jade cup announces the theme of crosscurrents from the outset.

A closer look at the floral cartouches and scrolling foliage on the cup reveals a visual language that runs through much of the exhibition: the decorated opening pages of manuscripts, ornamental headings on book pages, and the outlines of mosque arches.

I was reminded of a related exhibition held late last year at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, The Wonder of Patterns: Masterpieces from India, Iran and the Ottoman World from the Musée du Louvre, which presented the aesthetic achievements of Islamic art through some 300 objects from the Louvre. The ACM curatorial team added thirty works from its own collection and displayed them alongside one hundred objects on loan from the Louvre. In doing so, the perspective of the story shifted from the West towards Southeast Asia.

Curating is itself a position and a value judgement.

In the section “Persian Influence on Malay Letters,” two Qurans are displayed side by side: one from Ottoman Türkiye, dated 1752, and the other from Terengganu, Malaysia, dating from the eighteenth to nineteenth century. The Ottoman volume is precisely bound and follows a standard format designed to facilitate memorisation. While adopting this layout, the Terengganu version developed a distinctive local form of “floral calligraphy.” In the hands of the scribe, Arabic letters gradually transform into vegetal forms, deliberately blurring the boundary between script and flowers.

A nineteenth-century Malay Kitab Mawlid further demonstrates this development. The pointed-arch heading and scrolling vines at the top of the page share the same visual language as the cartouches on the jade cup, except that the medium has shifted from gold and jade to paper.

From the perspective of Text and Image Studies, this presents a specific line of inquiry: scrolling foliage and arched cartouches move between jade vessels and manuscripts, while vegetal ornament penetrates even further into the written word itself, becoming part of calligraphy. Ottoman calligraphy proclaims the sacred authority of the text. Terengganu floral calligraphy gives writing another form of dignity through its transformation into image—an order that took shape within the context of Southeast Asia.

In another section, a model of a mosque from western Sumatra also caught my attention. An octagonal open colonnade supports a broad, multi-tiered pitched roof. The upper level narrows into a smaller pavilion, topped by an onion-shaped dome that tapers into a finial. The pitched roof belongs to the local architectural tradition of Southeast Asia, while the onion dome is a later-introduced Islamic form. Their coexistence within a single structure is not a compromise, but a visual statement actively chosen by a community: we belong within the vast world of Islamic civilisation, and we also belong to this land.

Crosscurrents undoubtedly occurred. Yet what the receiving culture did after those currents arrived is the more important question. The scribes of Terengganu transformed letters into flowers and plants; the builders represented by the Sumatran mosque model preserved the pitched roof beneath the onion dome. These are not traces of passive reception, but expressions of local agency.

In the gallery, one display case follows another, one theme follows the next. The exhibition can juxtapose and suggest, but the continuity of ongoing adaptation and creation must ultimately be completed by each individual visitor.

Before leaving the gallery, I returned once more to the jade cup. Under the spotlight, the blackish-green jade emitted a restrained lustre, while the varying depths of the gold inlay created a subtle rhythm. As my gaze shifted, the gemstones appeared at times bright red, at times vivid purple. For five hundred years, Southeast Asia had already been present within this object. It simply required someone to stand before it, look carefully, reflect upon one’s own position, and finally see it.

Crosscurrents belong to what happened in the past. Beyond crosscurrents stands the viewer of today, carrying her own position and memories, rereading within these objects the presences that have never been named.

1 August 2026, “Shang Shan Ruo Shui” column, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore.

 

留下 Staying

 

 

热带的忧郁，是你以为所有发光的物体都是有温度的。月亮，以及稀疏的星子，恣意狂欢的夜。你不曾告诉我，热带的孤枕，也有取暖的渴望。

二十年前，初来新加坡的一个不眠之夜，我写下了这些句子。

我的渴望，在三个月后必修课“元明清文学”的最后片刻，在那首“真心英雄”唱的“把握生命里的每一分钟，全力以赴我们心中的梦。不经历风雨，怎么见彩虹，没有人能随随便便成功…。”七十双热切的眼睛里闪着泪光，有纸条传来，写着：“希望老师陪着我们毕业。”得到了彷徨的回应。

我申请延长海外研修，直到期满，下定決心离开台湾。我给原来的工作单位和南洋理工大学中文系的同事们都发了电邮。邮件的题目就是：“留下”。我說：

“凡走过的，必留下痕迹。有的人留下的是珠玑；有的人留下的是垃圾。

而我，能留下什么呢？

这是我来到新加坡以后，才意识到，并且开始认真思考的问题。

决定留在南大，我以为一个学术单位不缺专业的研究人员，而师资尚未完备的南大中文系需要我的一点力量。尤其体会到，自己正在为南洋一带的华人文化与文学培养传承者，这是我在台湾教书时从未经验过的责任感。

人生无法重来，我希望我的人生抉择不是一厢情愿。”

那天是 2008 年 5 月 9 日，中文系准备从澳洲聘任新的系主任，我提出了自己的看法。5月11日，我特地去“参拜”了南洋大学的“真迹”牌坊，默默许愿。。

我留下，是因为相信。

相信一个刚刚成立不久的中文系，有望一起建设；相信华文教育在这个岛国，昂首迎向未来；也相信，一位教师除了研究与写作，还可以为一个文化共同体做一点事情。

如今二十年过去，我常常想，如果当年知道后来会经历的一切，我还会不会作出同样的决定？

后来，我经历过办公室政治，经历过误解与伤害；曾经为了维护自己的尊严与公义，不得不寻求法律的协助和保护。那些日子非常不好过，深深在我心底烙下阴影。

今天回头望去，我发现：当年真正留下来的理由，并不是预想一切顺心称意，而是因为所有的经历，都成为生命未知的一部分。

如果没有留下，我不会在2014年创发文图学；不会在2017年与志同道合的朋友们成立文图学会，也不会一路走到今天，让文图学从一个研究构想，逐渐成为许多学者共同参与、不断发展的学术视野。如果没有留下，我不会担任中文系主任，与同事一起规划中文系的发展。

这些年来，我最难忘的，并不是出版了多少本书，也不是获得了什么奖项，而是文物艺术导览或公众演讲结束以后，总有人走过来，对我说：“原来博物馆可以这样看。”“我竟然听得懂大学教授讲的话！”

还有学生告诉我：“我没想到会期待上您的古典文学课。”

每一次听见这些话，我都庆幸，当初留下来的决定，是值得的。

我渐渐明白，一个学者真正留下来的，不一定是自己的名字，而是别人度过人生的方式。或许，这正是我二十年来最大的收获。

新加坡给予我的，不只是一个谋生的职场，而是一种观看世界的立场。

它让我站在不同文化交会之处，重新理解中国，也重新理解东亚，更重新理解自己。

人年轻的时候，总想着到哪里去。

后来才知道，更重要的是，在哪里留下什么。

二十年前，我留下，是因为有人希望我留下。

二十年后，我还在这里，还有许多值得继续努力的工作；还有许多文化值得继续传承创新；还有许多人愿意和我一起相信，人文学并没有淘汰，阅读、审美与思考，依然能够温暖这个时代。

于是，我终于明白——“留下”，是在一片土地上，把自己慢慢活成一道风景；把一点点微弱的光，继续照亮前方的道路。

当年那个住进校园宿舍、望着热带夜空的异乡人，不会知道二十年后的今天，会写下这篇文章。而今天的我，只想轻轻对二十年前的自己说一句：“刚刚好，你选择了留下。”

 

——纪念2026年7月16日，移居新加坡20年。

 

2026年7月18日，新加坡《联合早报》上善若水专栏。

 

Staying

I Lo-fen

The melancholy of the tropics lies in believing that everything that shines gives off warmth. The moon, a scattering of stars, a night reveling without restraint. You never told me that even a solitary pillow in the tropics longs for warmth.

Twenty years ago, during a sleepless night shortly after arriving in Singapore, I wrote these lines.

Three months later, in the final moments of the compulsory course “Literature of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties,” my longing received a hesitant response. As the song “True Heroes” played—

“Seize every minute of life,
Give everything for the dream in our hearts.
Without weathering storms, how can we see the rainbow?
No one can succeed without effort…”

tears glistened in seventy pairs of eager eyes. A note was passed to me. It read: “We hope you will stay with us until we graduate.”

I applied to extend my overseas research leave to its full term and resolved to leave Taiwan. I sent emails to my former institution and to my colleagues in the Chinese Division at Nanyang Technological University. The subject line was simply: “Staying.”

I wrote:

“Wherever we have passed, we inevitably leave traces behind. Some leave pearls and gems; others leave rubbish.

What, then, can I leave behind?

It was only after coming to Singapore that I became aware of this question and began to contemplate it seriously.

In deciding to stay at NTU, I believed that an academic institution would never lack professional researchers, but the still-developing Chinese Division needed whatever strength I could offer. Above all, I came to realise that I was helping to nurture those who would carry forward Chinese culture and literature in Nanyang. This was a sense of responsibility I had never experienced while teaching in Taiwan.

Life cannot be lived again. I hope that the choice I have made is not merely wishful thinking.”

That day was 9 May 2008. The Chinese Division was preparing to appoint a new head from Australia, and I offered my views. On 11 May, I made a special visit to “pay homage” to the “authentic” archway of Nanyang University and silently made a wish.

I stayed because I believed.

I believed that a recently established Chinese Division could be built together; I believed that Chinese-language education on this island could hold its head high and embrace the future; and I believed that, beyond research and writing, a teacher could still do something for a cultural community.

Now that twenty years have passed, I often wonder: had I known then everything I would later experience, would I still have made the same decision?

In the years that followed, I experienced office politics, misunderstandings, and hurt. To defend my dignity and uphold justice, I once had no choice but to seek legal assistance and protection. Those were extremely difficult days, leaving deep shadows imprinted upon my heart.

Looking back today, I realise that the true reason I stayed was not because I expected everything to proceed smoothly and according to my wishes, but because every experience would become part of life’s unknowable unfolding.

Had I not stayed, I would not have founded Text and Image Studies in 2014. I would not have established the Text and Image Studies Society with like-minded friends in 2017, nor would I have travelled this far, allowing Text and Image Studies to grow from a research concept into an academic perspective in which many scholars now participate and which continues to develop. Had I not stayed, I would not have served as Head of the Chinese Division and worked with my colleagues to plan its future development.

What I remember most vividly from these years is not how many books I have published or what awards I have received. It is that, after a guided tour of cultural relics and art or a public lecture, someone will invariably come up to me and say, “I never knew a museum could be viewed this way,” or, “I can actually understand what a university professor is saying!”

Students have also told me, “I never imagined that I would look forward to your classical literature class.”

Every time I hear these words, I feel grateful that my decision to stay was worthwhile.

Gradually, I came to understand that what a scholar truly leaves behind is not necessarily her own name, but the way other people live their lives. Perhaps this has been my greatest gain over the past twenty years.

What Singapore has given me is not merely a workplace in which to earn a living, but a standpoint from which to view the world.

Standing at the confluence of different cultures, I have been able to understand China anew, to understand East Asia anew, and, even more importantly, to understand myself anew.

When we are young, we are always thinking about where we should go.

Only later do we realise that what matters more is what we leave behind, wherever we may be.

Twenty years ago, I stayed because someone hoped that I would stay.

Twenty years later, I am still here. There is still much worthwhile work to pursue; there are still many cultures whose traditions deserve to be carried forward and renewed; and there are still many people willing to believe with me that the humanities have not become obsolete—that reading, aesthetic appreciation, and thought can still bring warmth to this age.

And so, I finally understand: “staying” means slowly living oneself into a landscape upon a piece of land, and allowing one’s faint glimmer of light to continue illuminating the road ahead.

The stranger who moved into a campus apartment and gazed at the tropical night sky could never have known that, twenty years later, she would write this essay. Today, I only wish to say softly to the person I was twenty years ago:

“It was just right—you chose to stay.”

—In commemoration of 16 July 2026, marking twenty years since I moved to Singapore.

 

18 July 2026, “The Shang Shan Ruo Shui Column,” Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore.