"El Niño" translates literally as "the Christ child" — the baby Jesus. Fishermen in Peru noticed the water warming around Christmas and gave it that name. This piece looks at why we habitually name what we cannot see, and treat it as a being with a temper.
Mid-Autumn 2026 falls on 25 September (the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month). Under the same moon, what takes the star role in the Taiwan region of China is often not mooncake but a grill — people cook at the front door, on the rooftop, in the riverside parks. This "tradition" is in fact quite young: it was made by a soy sauce advertisement, by grills that switched from export to the domestic market, and by mass retailers' seasonal campaigns.
In the three minutes before concert tickets go on sale, many people run through a fixed routine: wash their hands, switch devices, close other windows, set a lucky charm beside them. Do these actions work? They do — but not on the tickets.
A Japanese supermarket puts up a “Higan” shelf, Koreans rush to clear the grass from family graves before Chuseok, and Chinese families start choosing mooncakes. Three unrelated scenes, and one autumn timetable shared across East Asia.
In 2026 the seventh lunar month is a short one — just 29 days, with no thirtieth day — so in the Taiwan region the ghost gate closes early, late on 10 September. One small difference in the calendar pulls on a whole order of ghost month, the Zhongyuan rite and the Pudu offerings.
In August this year America's Old Farmer's Almanac released its 2026–2027 winter outlook and its "first snowfall" map, while the Chinese almanac showed the first day of the eighth lunar month, just past White Dew. One uses long-term cycles to reckon weather, the other uses the sexagenary cycle to fix what is auspicious or to be avoided — yet the two "almanac cultures" are really doing the same thing.
