虎爺: Tiger God Merch
and our annual warehouse sale
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 Holidays, everyone! I hope you’re finding rest and joy as this year winds to a close. It’s been a challenging one, with so much to fight for and protect, and still plenty to be grateful for. Our office is closed until the new year (yay), and I’ve got a looonngg list of hobbies to attend to, so I’ll keep this short.
This week, I’d like to introduce Hu Ye, the Tiger God, rendered in a playful cat-like form by Emilie Liu on the occasion of our store renovation. They’re the star of our new line of store merch, which launched in-store just before winter solstice and is available online from today. We started with a small batch, so if your size is out of stock, please sign up for the waitlist on the product page, and we’ll be sure to order it for you when we restock early next year.
And, we’re back in stock on most items. If you’ve been following along, you know that the dried fruit went out of stock early, along with several Tatung models and a few other items. We got a shipment in from Taiwan just before Christmas. Our warehouse is full again, though it may take a few days to get stock into the store.
2026 almanacs also sold out in record time; we’ve got a small amount that we shipped over from Taiwan arriving in the store as early as this Saturday. Please give the store a call during business hours to reserve one. We’re closed today but will be open again this Saturday.
Finally, don’t miss our annual warehouse sale, starting today, where we clear out the old to make room for the new. Save up to 30% off select items, now through 1/1, online and in-store.
This month saw a substantial overhaul of our brick-and-mortar, with the help of our friends at Future Expansion and Off Cut Design and Fabrication. We reopened only a few weeks ago and are so pleased with the results! I feel we’re just at the beginning of figuring out how to use the new space; there’s so much more room for new products and displays.
We occupy a very small footprint—about 250 square feet—and any change has a big impact on the feel of the store and how we operate it. We replaced a small counter with a long one and put up a wall of cabinets. This new millwork has changed the experience of the store almost completely, while highlighting the existing look of the shop. We continued to incorporate the warm woods I love so much, and the long counter references traditional apothecaries.
I’m drafting a Studio Notes newsletter with a behind-the-scenes look at the store evolution: what we did, why, and how. For now, I invite you in to come visit. I love hanging out in there and chatting with friend and customers.
Emilie Liu’s Hu Ye 虎爺 Tiger God
On the occasion of our updated store, friend-of-the-shop Emilie Liu (creator of the poodle painting up by our register that has become synonymous with our brick-and-mortar) has created a new series of painted works featuring Hu Ye 虎爺, the Tiger God, who typically stands at attention in temples in Taiwan as a guardian spirit—warding off evil, protecting children from illness, and bringing in wealth.
Emilie has imagined Hu Ye as maneki-neko, the beckoning cat placed at the entrances of many Taiwanese, Chinese, and Japanese businesses to bring in customers and fortune. As Hu Ye is typically hard at work protecting us, we thought Yun Hai could be a space where they’re off-duty: free to clean whiskers, scratch an itch, frolick, and stretch out.
During her research, she learned that Taiwanese depictions of the Tiger God (an immortal well known throughout the Chinese diaspora) were based on household cats, as Taiwan didn’t have tigers around to model. Hence Hu Ye’s unequivocal adorableness.
All paintings are on view at the shop through the end of January. Works are available for sale; please reach out via email reply or instagram DM to @yunhaishop for a price list!
Hu Ye 虎爺 by Emilie Lie
on view at Yun Hai Shop
now through the end of January
store hours here
Read more about the history of Hu Ye and how the tiger god influenced this body of work in Emilie’s artist statement:
When I began creating a new store mascot for Yun Hai’s grand reopening, I searched for a uniquely Taiwanese character, one that could serve as a Taiwanese version of the Maneki-neko. That’s when Hu Ye (虎爺), the Tiger God, came to mind.
In Taiwan, Hu Ye is often the last god worshipped in temples. According to folklore, he became a sacred protector after being tamed and turned into the mount of the Earth God (土地公) or City God (城隍爺). Born in the Year of the Tiger, and having grown up with a beloved stuffed tiger, I felt an immediate connection when I encountered Hu Ye at Taipei Songshan Ciyou Temple (台北松山慈祐宮).
The most fascinating discovery I made during my research was about Hu Ye’s original appearance: since there were no native tigers in Taiwan during the 17th century, the original sculptors carved the wooden figures based on domestic cats.
This explains why the Tiger God is typically small, rounded, and incredibly adorable! Traditionally, Hu Ye brings wealth, wards off evil, and protects children from illness.
This series begins with the most common Yellow Hu Ye, symbolizing protection, wealth, and health. The works expand into different colors inspired by the Chinese Five Elements, each carrying its own energy. In these pieces, Hu Ye reveals a playful, almost human side, roaming freely through the Ocean of Clouds (雲海 Yun Hai).
Emilie Liu x YH Store Merch
With Hu Ye as our new store mascot, we couldn’t wait to collaborate on some merch, so we took the first painting of Hu Ye and turned it into a store t-shirt, conceptualized as both a souvenir of the shop and store “uniform” (always optional).
On the front, we’ve created a store graphic with a cheeky slogan inspired by a Taiwanese colloquial expression that references the chaos of the marketplace. It reads 什麼都有，什麼都賣，都不奇怪，天天都在, or We have everything, we sell everything, nothing’s too strange, we’re here every day. The design references information graphics from store bags and business cards, so we’ve proudly put our essential info on there, including our precious support email address. Ha ha.
Shirts are availabe in beige and green. This was a bit of a challenge to produce, as we wanted to keep the organic texture of the painting in the graphic on the back. Thanks to fine screenprinters at Works in Progress for working with me on this and taking comments on press!
If your size goes out of stock, please sign up for the waitlist on the product page, and we’ll be sure to order it for you when we restock early next year.
Shirt by Comfort Colors
Silkscreened by Works in Progress
100% ringspun cotton, 6.1 oz. heavyweight
Pre-shrunk, soft-washed, and garment-dyed
Features:
1” ribbed collar with double-needle topstitched neckline
Double-needle stitched sleeves and bottom hem
Twill taped shoulder-to-shoulder
Set-in sleeves
About Emilie Liu
Emilie Liu is a Taiwanese painter and digital artist who works with both analog and digital media. Born and raised in Taipei, she has been based in New York since 2010.
Her objectives are to capture the emotions she has experienced while living in a diverse and dynamic city, while her color palette is influenced by the exuberant natural landscapes of Northern California, where she briefly resided. Emilie Liu has spent over a decade working in the design industry.
When she welcomed her dog Jupiter into her home four years ago, he inspired Emilie to seek a louder artistic voice. Most of her early work captures Jupiter’s lively micro-expressions. Jupiter’s positive energy radiates through Emilie’s brush strokes, applied in such a way as to achieve human scale. Other portraits capture canine companions belonging to strangers whose vibrant presences and quirks left an impression on Emilie that compelled her to document them on canvas.
The culminating works of this series are Emilie’s personalities made manifest. These portraits are projections of Emilie’s emotions and reflections from her daily experiences. Energetic and unexpected, Emilie’s work evokes a sense of wit and play.
Warehouse Sale
Don’t forget to take advantage of our warehouse sale. It’s not just the holiday dregs, but anything we ordered a little too much of, including our beautiful Maestro Wu knives, 11-cup bamboo steamers, Irwin mango jam, and some of our favorite soy sauces. Worth a look!
Expect discounts from 10 to 30 percent off on select overstock items online and in store. Sale ends at 11:59pm PST on Thursday, 1/1.
And now on to the rest of this holiday week. I’m hoping to knit a square bandana, finish that Chuck Klosterman book about the nineties, and finally make some black sesame shortbread. Expect to hear from me next week with my annual year-in-review post; it’s been one for the books.
And just a note that our Brooklyn store will be closing earlier than normal (5pm) on New Year’s Eve and will be closed New Year’s Day. We’re back to regular hours on January 2nd.
Don’t forget to contact the store to scoop up our last remaining almanacs!
nothing’s too strange,
Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉
Written with editorial support by Amalissa Uytingco, Jasmine Huang, Grace Jung, and Lillian Lin. 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 archives.
Studio Notes 09: Winter Solstice
An easy recipe from Jessie YuChen for some chill winter cooking this week.