Studio Notes 02: Shopkeep

a really cool chair and where to eat in Taitung

This is Studio Notes, an unstructured series of letters that pulls together things on my desk—cultural references, first hand research, personal archives—all in relation to how we tell stories, create spaces, and design products at Yun Hai.

It’s written for paid subscribers of Yun Hai Taiwan Stories, an otherwise free 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. If you’d rather trade words for words, I’ll happily send a full text link in exchange for your thoughts (a reference, a link, a photo). Just reply to this email.

Big announcement! We’re releasing Taiwanese rice this week, so expect another newsletter in quick succession.

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I’m fresh off a trip to Taiwan where I’ve been traveling with my family for the past two weeks. My goals for the trip: unstructured cultural immersion, check; achieve peak Mandarin, half check; and try every Kuai Kuai flavor I can get my hands on, pending. The kids were begging to return and I needed to reconnect, too; I’ve been running on fumes.

Kuai Kuai 乖乖 is a rice/corn puff made in many flavors. Special editions are produced in collaboration with farmers’ associations across Taiwan. I got my hands on mango, custard apple, seaweed, Taiwan lemon, and one with a hot air balloon on it that I’m still trying to figure out.

In addition to seeing friends and wandering our favorite neighborhoods in Taipei 台北, we traveled to Meinong 美濃, a small Hakka farming community in southern Taiwan (where our cured daikon comes from). There—George Lee, author of the Taiwanese cookbook A-Gong’s Table—welcomed us with a home-cooked meal. He recently relocated to the area to study culinary traditions among Meinong farmers, and has been cooking with elders in community kitchens. The menu showcased local ingredients, including ferments crafted by neighbors, like cured radish tops and salted cabbage. I left with treasures: a bag of dried radishes, cured daikon leaves, fermented soybean pickles, lard-fried shallots, and the memory of the community’s warm hospitality.

Our lunch with George: pork rib soup with pigeon peas, aged radish omelet, stir fried pineapple and wood ear, tofu skin and celery, lard-fried fermented black beans, soyed tuna filet, braised pork with cured turnip tops, soyed pork with red bean, steamed vegetables, and peanut tofu. We dined at the Meinong agricultural field office; the meal was prepared by George in the back kitchen.

Next, we headed east to the area around Taitung 台東, a region in southeastern Taiwan known for rice farming and pristine natural surroundings. We explored the old sugar factory town of Dalun 都蘭, which felt like what I imagine Hawaii to be like, with surfers and open air cafes everywhere. We made a surprisingly fun stop in Chishang 池上, where we drove electric carts through scenic rice paddies (wow, more on this later). Then, we headed south to Taimali 太麻里, a small town on wild coastline (I thought the ocean would swallow me) with a large Paiwan and Amis indigenous population. I felt lucky to be on the narrow strip of land between the sea and the foot of the mountains.

Big Taitung ocean.

For me, there was a stark contrast between being in Taiwan, which felt like the bosom of safety and nourishment, and the US I left behind, where eggs basically became illegal for awhile and Elon Musk started demanding productivity reports. A friend of mine from Changhua 彰化, when I asked how she’d been, answered, ”awesome, Taiwan is always awesome,” which of course isn’t exactly true, but it sure felt like it at the time. All this got me thinking about communities and experiences where goods and productivity aren’t really paramount, but well-being is, an especially powerful sentiment given the geopolitical instability Taiwan faces.

I had lunch with another friend, a designer in Taipei, who shared that the constant threat of losing her homeland to China has led her to treasure the Taiwan of today, with a commitment to pursue her creative work as she sees fit, not waiting for the most opportune time or expression. She described this attitude as joyful, which I found particularly instructive during this dark period in American politics.

A display of packaging types at a wholesale supply shop on Dihua Street in Taipei. I couldn’t resist purchasing a few canisters.

I bring all this up because now more than ever, being “in business” feels uncomfortable; the label “entrepreneur” is unwanted. Things I love at their core—person-to-person exchange, stewardship of craft, pride in production, and even sign making—feel difficult to separate from the continuum of techno-industrialization, the mindless moving of goods (rather than good), moderated by advertising companies enabled by data harvesting. I’ve always wanted to hang a shingle outside my door, but now said shingle is subject to algorithm and creates capital for parties I want nothing to do with. Where do I exit this highway? And what car should I even be driving?

Keep reading for observations on how some small Taiwanese businesses flout the conventions of modern commerce. Plus, a few dining recommendations in the Taitung 台東 area. The rest of the email is for paid subscribers, but I’m up for a trade, too. Send me some of your own words (a reference you like, a story, an image you took) and I’ll share the full text.