The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup

The main principle behind The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup is **cultural translation**—transforming a familiar contemporary phenomenon into a meaningful cultural experience.

The project was inspired by a fascinating linguistic coincidence in Taiwan. The word "Kaobei" is widely used in online culture as a humorous expression of frustration, complaint, surprise, or emotional release. At the same time, "Jiaobei" refers to the traditional wooden divination blocks used in temples to seek guidance from deities. Although the two words originate from completely different contexts, their similar pronunciation immediately captured my attention.

This observation led to a simple but intriguing question:

**What if internet culture and traditional culture could have a conversation?**

Rather than viewing online language as something temporary or superficial, I became interested in exploring how contemporary digital expressions might reflect cultural values, emotions, and social behaviors. The project therefore reinterprets the ritual of temple divination through the lens of modern internet culture, creating a playful yet meaningful bridge between tradition and contemporary life.

The inspiration also came from a broader observation about society. Many people perceive traditional culture and digital culture as separate worlds, yet both are ultimately forms of communication. One seeks answers from the gods, while the other seeks understanding, empathy, or emotional release from online communities. In different ways, both reflect humanity's desire to express feelings, ask questions, and connect with others.

The design combines humor, participation, storytelling, and cultural symbolism to encourage people to reconsider familiar concepts from a fresh perspective. By transforming a common internet expression into an interactive cultural experience, the project invites audiences to reflect on how language evolves, how culture adapts, and how traditions can remain relevant in contemporary society.

Ultimately, the project is not simply about internet slang or temple rituals. It is about creating dialogue between past and present, tradition and technology, culture and communication.

Its core idea can be summarized in a single sentence:

**What we say online can become part of how we understand culture.**

My main focus in designing The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup was to create a meaningful connection between contemporary digital culture and traditional cultural heritage.

Many cultural preservation projects struggle to engage younger audiences because they often rely on conventional methods of presentation. At the same time, internet culture is frequently viewed as temporary, informal, or lacking cultural value. I wanted to challenge both assumptions.

The primary goal was not simply to create an interesting visual identity or a humorous campaign. Instead, I wanted to explore whether a familiar internet expression could become a gateway for people to rediscover traditional culture.

By combining the widely used online expression "Kaobei" with the traditional ritual of "Jiaobei" temple divination, I sought to create a shared cultural experience that felt accessible, relevant, and engaging for contemporary audiences. Rather than asking people to learn about culture, I wanted them to participate in it.

Another important objective was to encourage dialogue between generations. Older generations are often more familiar with traditional rituals, while younger generations are deeply immersed in digital culture. The project created a common point of reference where both groups could engage with the same experience from different perspectives.

Humor also played an important role. I believe humor is one of the most powerful forms of communication because it lowers barriers and encourages participation. Through playful interaction, people became more willing to explore cultural meanings that they might otherwise overlook.

On a broader level, I wanted to demonstrate that culture is not static. Culture continuously evolves through language, behavior, technology, and social interaction. The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup was designed as an experiment in cultural reinterpretation—showing how traditional practices can remain relevant by engaging with contemporary forms of expression.

Ultimately, my goal was simple:

**To transform a familiar internet phrase into a meaningful cultural conversation.**

If visitors left the experience smiling, reflecting, and seeing both digital culture and traditional culture in a new way, then I felt the project had achieved its purpose.

Winning the award is not the end of The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup; in many ways, it is the beginning of a larger cultural conversation.

My future vision for the project is to expand it beyond a single event and develop it into a long-term cultural platform that explores the relationship between language, communication, technology, and contemporary culture.

One direction is to transform the project into a traveling exhibition that can be presented in museums, cultural centers, universities, and public spaces. The themes explored by the project—digital communication, cultural identity, social participation, and language evolution—are relevant far beyond Taiwan. I believe audiences in different countries can also relate to the universal human desire to express emotions, seek understanding, and connect with others.

Another possibility is to develop new interactive experiences inspired by emerging forms of communication. Language is constantly evolving, especially in the digital era. New expressions, memes, symbols, and social behaviors emerge every day. I am interested in exploring how these contemporary forms of expression can be documented, interpreted, and transformed into meaningful cultural experiences.

The project may also expand into educational initiatives. As an educator, I see great potential for using humor, participation, and storytelling to help younger generations engage with cultural heritage in more accessible ways. The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup demonstrates that culture does not need to be distant or formal—it can be playful, interactive, and deeply relevant to everyday life.

In the future, I would also like to explore collaborations with cultural institutions, museums, researchers, and creative communities to further investigate how digital culture is reshaping collective memory and cultural identity.

Ultimately, my goal is not simply to preserve culture, but to keep culture alive.

Culture survives when people continue to participate in it, reinterpret it, and make it meaningful for their own generation.

The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup began as an experiment in cultural translation. I hope it will continue evolving as a platform that encourages dialogue between tradition and innovation, local culture and global audiences, the physical world and the digital world.

In that sense, I believe the project's most interesting chapter may still be ahead.

The defining moment came from my long-term observation of Taiwanese vernacular culture and the way language evolves in everyday life.For many years, I have been fascinated by the expressions people use in ordinary conversations. These vernacular phrases are often overlooked because they are so familiar, yet they carry humor, emotion, identity, and collective cultural memory. As digital communication became increasingly dominant, I noticed that many of these expressions had evolved beyond their original meanings and were being used as conversational markers, emotional cues, and even a form of contemporary grammar within social media, messaging platforms, and online communities.What intrigued me was that these seemingly casual expressions had become one of the most recognizable and emotionally resonant forms of communication in modern Taiwanese society. People understood them instantly because they were already embedded in their daily lives.The breakthrough occurred when I began exploring how museums could connect with broader audiences through more familiar and relatable forms of communication. Traditionally, museums are often associated with history, preservation, and formal cultural narratives. I wondered whether the language people actually use every day could also become a cultural medium worthy of interpretation and discussion within a museum context.When the first prototypes were presented, visitors did not simply see a ceramic cup. They immediately recognized the expression, smiled, shared personal experiences, and started conversations with others. Some photographed the cup and shared it online, while others discussed how the phrase reflected contemporary Taiwanese life. At that moment, I realized that the project was functioning as far more than a decorative object.The cup had become a cultural interface.It created a bridge between vernacular language and institutional culture, between digital communication and physical experience, and between everyday life and cultural reflection. By materializing a familiar expression onto a functional ceramic object, the project transformed a common linguistic habit into a shared cultural experience.What fascinated me most was that the design did not create a new language. Instead, it revealed the cultural value already hidden within existing language. The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup demonstrated that the words people use every day can become meaningful vehicles for cultural engagement, memory, and communication.That was the moment I understood that the project was not simply about designing a cup. It was about transforming an ordinary expression into a tangible platform for cultural connection.

One of the most interesting aspects of the project lies in the word itself. In Taiwanese vernacular culture, the expression “Kaobei” is widely recognized as an emotional exclamation used to express surprise, frustration, disbelief, or humor. At the same time, the final syllable, “bei,” is a homophone of the Chinese word for cup. This linguistic coincidence provided an unexpected opportunity to transform language into an object while preserving its cultural meaning.The project also reflects a deeper observation about everyday life. Ordinary people often have to "drink" many of life's frustrations, pressures, and disappointments. By placing the expression onto a functional cup, the design transforms a familiar emotional release into a daily ritual. The act of drinking becomes a subtle metaphor for how people process and cope with life's challenges, often with humor and resilience.From a design perspective, I was also inspired by the Bauhaus principle that materials should actively contribute to function and meaning. Rather than treating ceramics merely as a decorative surface, the porcelain cup became an integral part of the communication experience. The material's durability, tactile quality, and everyday usability allowed language to be experienced physically rather than simply read visually.This unexpected combination of vernacular language, functional design, and cultural symbolism generated strong engagement both inside museums and across social media. Visitors were often surprised to encounter a phrase commonly found in everyday conversations within a museum environment. That surprise frequently evolved into laughter, discussion, and social sharing.In many ways, the project helped museums communicate in a more approachable and human manner. Instead of speaking only through formal institutional narratives, the museum could engage visitors through a language they already knew and used. The expression functioned almost like a friend breaking the ice, creating an immediate emotional connection between cultural institutions and the public.Interestingly, “Kaobei” itself often operates as a contemporary exclamation of surprise. When visitors encountered the cup, they frequently reacted with the very emotion embedded within the phrase—astonishment, amusement, and curiosity. This created a playful loop in which the language, the object, and the audience's response became inseparable parts of the experience.Ultimately, The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup demonstrates how everyday language can move beyond communication and become a living cultural medium—one that bridges digital culture, physical interaction, humor, memory, and social participation.

One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup was that the project required language to be treated not simply as information, but as a material that had to coexist with a physical object.In conventional graphic design, typography is typically experienced on flat surfaces such as screens, posters, or printed media. Designers have considerable freedom in terms of scale, detail, color, and composition. However, once language is transferred onto a three-dimensional ceramic object, entirely different considerations emerge. The typography must adapt to curvature, viewing angles, tactile interaction, and the technical limitations of ceramic production.The project began with my observation of Taiwanese vernacular culture and the evolution of everyday language in the digital era. Expressions such as "Kaobei" are no longer merely words; they have become emotional signals, conversational markers, and a form of contemporary social grammar. My goal was to transform this living linguistic phenomenon into a tangible object while preserving its familiarity, humor, and communicative power.The realization of the ceramic object itself was made possible through collaboration with ceramic artist Li Ting-Yi, founder of Yeeee Pottery Studio in Taiwan. Based on my design concept, visual system, and communication framework, Li translated the two-dimensional design into a handcrafted ceramic form and oversaw the shaping, glazing, and kiln-firing processes. This collaboration brought together two distinct yet complementary disciplines: communication design and ceramic craftsmanship.Working closely with the studio deepened my understanding of how material processes influence communication. Certain visual details that appeared effective in graphic form required adjustment when translated into porcelain. Factors such as curvature, shrinkage during firing, surface texture, decal application, and viewing distance all affected how the vernacular expression would ultimately be perceived and experienced. The final outcome emerged through an ongoing dialogue between design intention and material reality.The production process involved ceramic slip casting, precision decal transfer printing, and high-temperature kiln firing. Each stage imposed constraints that directly influenced the visual development of the project. Fine typographic details could become distorted during firing, overly complex compositions risked losing clarity on curved surfaces, and the expression had to remain visually legible from multiple angles during everyday use. As a result, the visual language evolved toward stronger forms, simplified structures, and carefully balanced compositions capable of surviving both technical production requirements and repeated daily interaction.At the same time, I wanted to preserve the spontaneity and emotional authenticity of vernacular language. Everyday expressions derive much of their communicative power from their informality and immediacy. The challenge was finding a balance between precision and authenticity—creating a design system that could be reproduced consistently through ceramic production while retaining the humor, familiarity, and cultural energy embedded within the original expression.This process led me to think beyond typography as a purely visual discipline. The project became an exploration of how language behaves when it occupies physical space. Once a phrase is permanently embedded onto a porcelain surface, it is no longer experienced only through reading. It becomes something people hold, touch, photograph, share online, discuss with others, and integrate into everyday rituals.I was particularly interested in the relationship between material and meaning. Inspired by Bauhaus principles, I believe materials should actively contribute to communication rather than merely serve as passive carriers of information. In this project, porcelain was not simply a surface for language. Its durability, weight, tactile quality, and everyday functionality transformed a temporary digital expression into a lasting cultural artifact.This fusion of material craft and linguistic inquiry suggests exciting possibilities for the future of language-based product design. As contemporary communication increasingly takes place within digital environments, there is growing value in re-materializing language through physical objects. Products can become platforms for storytelling, cultural preservation, social interaction, and identity formation.Rather than viewing language as something confined to screens or printed text, designers may begin to treat language itself as a design material—one capable of shaping experiences, building communities, and carrying cultural memory across both physical and digital contexts.In this sense, The Kaobei Cultural Promotion Cup is not merely a ceramic product. It is an experiment in how words, materials, craftsmanship, and everyday rituals can converge to create new forms of cultural communication.