Spring Festival Notes, 2026: Everyday Warmth and Philosophy in Five Small Things

The Spring Festival bustle is gradually drawing to a close. Looking back, a few small things impressed me and prompted new thoughts.

I. Customs: Their Truth and Their Use

On New Year’s Eve, we went up the mountain to honor our ancestors, as custom requires.

Going up, I sat in the back of my uncle’s three-wheeler. The mountain road twisted endlessly; the vehicle bumped and swayed; wind rushed past my ears. It had been a long time since I traveled through mountains this way. That rough, real sensation brought childhood back at once.

Coming down, we changed to another cousin-uncle’s car, smooth and quiet, like driving from the past back to the present.

Honestly, I do not truly believe burning paper money brings wealth to departed relatives. I prefer to understand it as a connection among the living.

Ancestors leave not just blood ties, but rituals that gather descendants, letting the family support and affirm one another.

Many things can be viewed in two dimensions:

One is whether they are true.
The other is whether they are useful.

Some do not fit scientific logic, yet remain effective in society for a long time.

Take certain folk sayings.

Do not sweep on New Year’s Day, or you will sweep away your fortune.

Dust and wealth have no causal connection. But if every household cleans and dumps rubbish during festivities, the lanes become messy. So people simply decree no sweeping that day, letting everyone settle down and celebrate.

Another custom forbids unlucky words in the first lunar month.

Avoid death, poverty, badness. It sounds superstitious, but creates a psychological suggestion for the year. Language shapes emotions, which shape actions. Good words in the opening days set the whole year’s mental tone.

Spring couplets must also be posted before New Year’s Eve.

Late posting supposedly misses the auspicious moment. Seen differently, it is time management: forcing preparations and tidying to be finished before the holiday, putting household order back in place.

Some say meeting a Buddhist nun in the mountains brings misfortune.

Imagine ancient life: convents deep in mountains, visitors mostly farmers and hunters. Wilderness, a man and woman alone, no surveillance. To protect nuns, people invented the saying so passersby would avoid them.

Less superstition than social protection.

Or do not clip nails at night, or ghosts will find you.

Without reliable lighting, clipping in darkness easily cuts fingers. People replaced risk with ghosts.

Reason does not always create order. Stories can.

My uncle said something memorable: “Burning paper money may not work, but burning paper gold ingots does.”

Ha. Interesting.

Faith is not necessarily inferior to reason. They are different explanatory systems formed by different life experiences.

II. Awkward Sincerity

Friends sent New Year’s wishes on New Year’s Eve.

One was a little boy, my class subject representative. Very sweet.

First, a pretty girl who does well at school sent an elegantly edited greeting. Ten minutes or so later, the boy sent exactly the same text.

Perhaps he did not know how to express himself. He thought those words good, so forwarded something he valued to someone he wanted to wish well.

I was not disappointed.

Instead, moved.

Willingness to share something you find beautiful is itself care.

We often obsess over original expression and overlook the transmission of feeling.

A copy can be sincere.

That slightly awkward sincerity is especially precious.

III. A Technological Spring Festival Gala and the AI Age

This year’s gala was especially full of AI and robots.

My interactions with AI this year probably exceeded several million characters. Thousands of images, hundreds of videos.

If asked my greatest interest now, it must be AI.

I see many people lost on Douyin. Like their parents at the crossroads of reform and opening-up, they stand at the AI age’s crossroads.

Everyone knows it is an opportunity.

Nobody knows where the exit lies.

My understanding is simple:

You must enter first.

Only from inside will the exit appear.
Watching from the doorway yields no answer.

A collection of images made with AI

IV. Lives Drifting Apart, and AI’s Precise Prediction

At New Year, do you think of important friends you rarely contact?

Some matter greatly in your heart.

You weigh it repeatedly:

Will just “Happy New Year” look like a mass message? Will too much sound like a template?

Long thought, deleting and rewriting.

Finally:

“Happy New Year!”

They reply “Happy New Year,” with a cute sticker.

Before sending, I told AI my doubts and thoughts.

It predicted the reply precisely, word for word, even the added sticker.

It said: “When you send this, politeness will lead them to reply ‘Happy New Year’ and add a cute sticker.”

Exactly so. Not one extra word or missing image. Coincidence?

Perhaps. But also a high-probability prediction based on vast human behavioral data. Before cold algorithms, emotional responses sometimes seem so patterned.

We sometimes think our feelings unique, while the pattern has repeated countless times.

It surprised me, and left me a little sad.

V. Three-Card Poker and a “Psychological Algorithm”

Yesterday I met high-school classmates.

Eight of us played zha jin hua, a three-card poker game.

Simple rules: three cards each; compare combinations by probability.

The less probable a combination, the stronger the hand.

The game is essentially probability and strategy.

With weak cards, cut losses. With above-average cards, stay reasonably.

But everyone understood probability, so it became judging people.

Do not pay for sunk costs. Control losses and remain at the table: the first principle.

When needed, yield a few chips deliberately, obscure your hand, and prepare to counterattack.

Read faces and words; bet on the other’s hesitation.

Luck was good that night. I won the most.

Money was not important.

What mattered was clearly feeling an algorithm running.

Undistracted by emotion, unswayed by winning or losing.

Constantly adjusting strategy through practice.

At that moment, I seemed to understand the game’s Dao.

From knowing nothing, to entering personally, to gradually forming my own logic.

Many fields are the same.

Closing

Much happened this year.

Many gains, many losses.

Perhaps life is like this:

Between belief and disbelief, copying and sincerity, probability and emotion, technology and humanity.

Keep walking, and another year passes.

A slightly belated Happy New Year to everyone.

May next year be better.

And the year after, better still.

Happy New Year, and happiness every day!