This is Yun Hai Taiwan Stories, a newsletter about Taiwanese food and culture by Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉, founder of Yun Hai. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, sign up here.
Happy November! I’m so pleased to announce that the second annual Yun Hai x O.OO 2027 Lunisolar Almanac is now available to order. This is our annual labor of love; every page has been attended to by the Yun Hai team, Taiwanese design studio O.OO, our collaborators James Kuo 郭柏岬 and Hsun-Chih Chan 詹巽智, and the printers in Taiwan. When producing it this summer, I remember thinking it was the ultimate act of creation, a reminder that things come to be when people dedicate themselves to the manifestation of their ideas. And then I thought about how the life of a professional calendar maker is always in the future.
These will ship out the week of November 16th, so anything you order in the same cart will also be held to that date. International customers: we are shipping to Canada, the UK, and Taiwan!
Finally, in case you are already doing your holiday shopping, note that we have a couple more launches coming up: a beautiful series of ceramics referencing the form of the roadside banquet disposable tableware, coming November 11th, and a few new gift box sets, dropping the week of Thanksgiving. And keep an eye out for the next episode of Cooking With Steam, which magically transforms Thanksgiving leftovers into Taiwanese food.
Close readers of this newsletter will know that I am a red-and-green girlie. You may see me walking through the streets and wonder aloud “what’s going on with the christmas colors,” and I will respond “though it is coming up, these are not the colors of christmas, they are the colors of the taiwanese postal service,” and you will say “really, i didn’t know that,” and I will say “yes, and actually these colors also signify abundance and life in motion,” and you will say “wow that’s beautiful.” And that’s why I wear these shoes.
Red and green are the official Yun Hai brand colors, but this year, when we needed a new color for our second annual lunisolar almanac, we introduced cerulean into the mix. To bring in blue required an entire self-reevaluation and a million texts and Slack messages to friends and coworkers. Classic Libra (though I do identify as Aries) (another favorite joke)!
Meanwhile, Pip (O.OO almanac designer and my greatest inspiration) be like:
Sky blue heart?! With a grey doodley-doo?? Say no more. Blue it is.
And it’s a good thing we went with blue because can you imagine how it would feel to release an all-red calendar right now? Given what just happened in this country??!!!
And with that, please meet our new majority-blue lunisolar almanac, officially available to order.
Yun Hai x O.OO 2027 Lunisolar Almanac
We launched our first (sold out) Yun Hai x O.OO Lunisolar Almanac this time last year, taking on this project when our friends at Five Metal Shop retired their annual version. The design process, a collaboration between us and design studio O.OO, changed me; I began to see calendars as the stars on paper. And it’s true: each number and prediction in this almanac comes from a precise configuration of our planet relative to the other cosmic bodies—that’s how we mark time. Time is space.
You can read more about the design process and all the parts of the calendar in this newsletter here.
Our interpretation of this longstanding tradition combines the lunar calendar, 24 solar terms, US and Taiwanese holidays, Western astrological cycles, moon phases, Chinese sexagenary dates, and translated daily good/avoid recommendations from an established Taiwanese almanac source. This year, we’ve improved the legibility of the good/avoid sections and added moon phases. This is one of my favorite features—even though I know that the moon phases determine the lunar month and all the lunar holidays, it’s so nice to see the moon wax and wane with the time.
This year—very exciting—we’ve also introduced illustrations and photography. Taiwanese-American cartoonist James Kuo 郭柏岬 created brush-and-ink illustrations for major Taiwanese holidays like Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. On the weekend pages, we’ve included architectural photography by Taiwanese artist (and owner of my favorite Chan Chi Hot Pot Lab) Hsun-Chih Chan 詹巽智, whose work interprets buildings across Taiwan as mountains.
Once a day has passed, tear off the page, then—as is customary in Taiwan—repurpose it into scratch paper, reuse it as gift wrap, or fold it into a tabletop trash receptacle for fruit pits. So many of our friends sent us pictures of their paper origami “trash cans.”
Mugwort Saves the Day
I’ve never known anyone that can draw more flexibly, diligently, precisely, or speedily than Taiwanese-American cartoonist James Kuo (@jameskuoart), who created holiday illustrations for the 2027 almanac.
I had met him in the store some years ago, and we became friends. I had been hoping to feature illustrations on our holiday pages, so when the time came for 2027, I asked him. I knew he would handle the subject matter with seriousness while also producing playful illustrations.
I did not, however, anticipate how challenging it would be to art direct a set of illustrations that would fit the calendar just right. If we picked motifs that were too well known, it felt didactic, like we were trying to explain the holiday. If James put in too many scenographic details, it felt like manga, and took on an emotional quality. If we left things too simplistic, it felt cute. On top of that, illustration is such a large element that it really defines the temperature and tempo of the book (yes, a calendar is a book).
With literal scores of drawings produced, all of them good, things were close but not clicking, and our deadline was looming. I felt that my creative direction had sent my collaborator on a goose chase, without a clear end, and if the illustrations weren’t absolutely right, I would not take the risk of including them. I gathered every ounce of bravery, pragmatism, and sensitivity I had to give him a call and tell him so. What happened next was really wonderful.
James firmly suggested we give it one more try and asked me to send him a sketch that I thought could work. I had made one earlier in this process, but never shared it because I thought it was too primitive: a doodle of a mugwort leaf for Dragon Boat Festival. It’s an important plant for the holiday, but just one step removed from the more recognizable icons like the dragon boats themselves.
And then from James, a message and a new drawing:
And then Pip again, in her signature style:
And then everything flowed from there.
To me, this was one of the most important moments of 2026, and I’m so glad it’s captured on the June 9th page of 2027, almost exactly one year later. Creative direction can feel easy when it’s all just working, but when it isn’t, despite everyone’s best efforts and talents, it’s difficult to know what to do. And it’s emotionally fretful, too, because so much has gone in.
Thanks to James’ gentle perseverance (with some credit to my fearless honesty), we prevailed and had all the holiday drawings done within days. I’m very grateful for this experience.
And it just so happens that because he is ultra-prolific, James has a big stack of original ink drawings of Taiwanese holiday motifs that he’s selling at his own shop for $64 apiece (equivalent of 2027 NTD). Please go collect these! They’re really good! Not to deter you from our own holiday offerings, but these would make excellent holiday gifts, especially for fans of the almanac.
Here’s my favorite: a chrysanthemum, one of James’ B-sides for the Double Ninth Festival page.
And to show you again how much care was put into this, James sent me this quote from The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, a 17th-century manual on the art of Chinese painting, as he was working on it. So much attentiveness, nothing throwaway, so thoughtful. Chrysanthemum is my favorite flower, by the way, and the description here is spot on. Each flower a star, an individual light.
Every Building a Summit
The second artwork featured in the almanac is a series that appears every weekend (unless it’s a holiday), titled 山山山 Mountains, by Hsun-Chih Chan. This inclusion was specifically inspired by the original almanac page I’ve been referencing since 2025: see the monotone image of a Lien Hwa Milling corporate building, bottom left in the image below. I loved how it was mundane and monumental at the same time.
I shared this with Pip, who suggested we contact our friend Chan, proprietor of the famous Chan Chi Hot Pot Lab (I mean you gotta go), but also an artist and designer. He had been photographing buildings around Taiwan for several years and sharing them on Instagram. From an ant’s-eye view, these mostly nothing-special buildings looked like landscape, and to me they represent the rapid modernization of Taiwan and how its population has both acclimated to it and subverted it.
Here is Chan’s statement:
This series is made using a method anyone can do. I simply hold up my phone and photograph buildings from below, letting perspective do the work. There are no special techniques or carefully staged compositions. By using a viewpoint available to everyone, ordinary city buildings become imagined mountains.
As the lines of each building converge upward, they naturally echo the shape of the Chinese character 山 ("mountain“). The images accumulate through repetition and restraint, almost like a catalog or a collection of landscape specimens. One by one, familiar buildings gradually lose their original identities and become abstract mountain ranges.
A foreign friend once told me how lucky people in Taiwan are. Mountains and the sea are both close enough to visit in a single day. Where he grew up, you could have mountains or the sea, but rarely both.
Growing up in Taipei, I was surrounded by Yangmingshan, Guanyin Mountain, and the Datun volcanic group. Over time, I realized that even in the middle of the city, mountains are everywhere, as long as you’re willing to look up.
This sentiment momentarily held the global public’s rapt attention when Alex Honnold scaled Taipei 101 in a free solo in January.
A few more from the series:
And speaking of time and stars aligning, here I am at an unforgettable dinner in 2023, at Chan Chi Hot Pot Lab. Chan is all the way to the left; I’m next (of course sweating bullets and wearing something weird I bought off the street), then Pip (of O.OO); our friend Jeff 張軒豪, who did the calligraphy for the Yun Hai shop flags; and our good friends and musicians Marc Merza and Emma Palm. We left the room with crazy happy energy that’s still providing for me years later. Sometimes I get really burnt out and look at photos like these and remember.
Onward ho!
Before I Go…
A running list of holiday stuff:
In case you missed it, last week we launched a series of non-alcoholic, sommelier-grade sparkling teas by S.C Lab. They’re cold-brewed from Taiwanese oolong and botanicals, then lightly carbonated to finish. In the course of crafting them, The producer follows a “five notes” philosophy, considering the aroma, the first sip, how the flavor develops in your mouth, the finish after swallowing, and the aroma left behind in the glass. Check out all three flavors from the lineup: Tieguanyin, Guava Oriental Beauty, and Longan Osmanthus (caffeine-free).
Bando Ceramics are launching next week! If you’d like to be the first to know, you can sign up for our waitlist here or just watch this space.
Also stay tuned next week for the Thanksgiving episode of Cooking With Steam. I repurpose turkey leftovers to make the most satisfying bowl of Chiayi turkey rice 火雞肉飯. We also whip together an accompanying salad inspired by the mayo-dressed, rainbow-sprinkle-garnished genre of dishes in Taiwan.
We still have a few bottles of bulk peanut oil available at a discount! The plastic bottle comes with 600 ml of peanut oil at 20% less than the regular glass bottle size. It’s rich, incredibly aromatic (tasting notes: baseball game, Reese’s), and perfect for stir-frying and deep-frying because of its high smoke point. I personally ran out and have been like what in the world, how did I ever cook before.
In conclusion:
💙➰,
Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉
Written with editorial support by Amalissa Uytingco, Jasmine Huang, Lillian Lin, and Natya Regensburger. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with friends and subscribe if you haven’t already. I email once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. For more Taiwanese food, head to yunhai.shop, follow us on instagram and twitter, or view the newsletter archive.
