Renowned Taiwanese writer and essayist Lung Ying-tai was the speaker for the closing talk of the inaugural City Reading @ SG festival organised by Singapore newspaper Lianhe Zaobao . Her talk, titled When I Walk Into the Mountains , was held on 3 June 2023 in the Concert Hall of festival venue partner Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. It drew an audience of about 1,400 – a rare sight in Singapore for a talk by a writer, as Lee Huay Leng, Editor-in-chief of SPH Media Trust’s Chinese Media Group noted in her introductory remarks.

A former Culture Minister of Taiwan, Dr Lung left urban living for a remote village in 2017. Since 2021 she counts as her home Mount Dulan in eastern Taiwan, with its panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. In an hour-long talk, followed by a Q&A with the audience, she reflected on what it means to live immersed in nature and in conversation with the environment – the subjects of her recent works Under Dawu Mountain and Walking .

The talk is in Chinese with English subtitles. Video provided by Lianhe Zaobao with permission to stream on Offstage. Images courtesy of Lung Ying-tai/ Lianhe Zaobao.