I wanted a Buzz Lightyear toy. That was easy- I headed to Takashimaya and visited the Disney section. The second one was extremely hard. You see, I was looking for something totally out of this world - a simple baby doll. Soft and human looking. My idea of a great toy for a small girl to play with: a true "puppen" toy, and something many cultures are proud of is their doll-making. Something that costs a bit but is a feast of timeless delight to everyone in the family. And such a gift idea seems totally far out in Singapore this day and age.
Wikipedia informs me:
Archaeological evidence places dolls as foremost candidate for oldest known toy, having been found in Egyptian tombs which date to as early as 2000 BCE. Roman doll-makers continued to use technology developed by the Egyptians and Greeks, but in line with the artistic sensibilities of their culture, they were constantly trying to make dolls more elegant and beautiful. One doll, found near Prati in Rome, was made of ivory and lay beside her owner who had died at the age of eighteen. Next to the doll was a small box, also made of ivory, containing tiny combs and a silver mirror. The doll had rings on her fingers and held a tiny key, which unlocked the box. Like children today, the younger members of Roman civilization would have dressed and undressed their dolls, and decorated their hair and fingers according to the latest fashions.
And in today's stores, you see shelves lined with odd-sized yellow, pink and coffee-coloured bears, cats and dragons. Also odd-looking dolls. But not a human-looking baby doll.
If you ask any girl or woman what is her favourite toy, would she name a green monster, or a lizard, or a weird sabre-wielding laser-fitted robot? I am not referring to Buzz Lightyear. He is human enough albeit a nerd, and has been given a lovely persona and voice. But I am talking of all those hundreds and hundreds of plastic boxed toys that line the alleys of today's toy stores.
There are pink bimbo sections for girls, with hard plastic-smiling impossibly curvy stiletto-heeled Barbies, and uncountable speed-and-kill toys for boys. They are black, pointy, ugly, and even the large plastic packages have a huge clutter of markings and blurbs in so many languages including bar codes and other machine-ready markings.
The whole thing looks so far from humans and what humans may like unless we are dealing with totally clueless programmed nitwits reared on the Telly that can think of only plastic joys and toys. Like I saw this Seinfeld episode where the guy wants to buy the game parlour machine on which he once scored the highest score ever and it comes up on the screen as the Top Score with his name... and he wants it moved from the parlour to his home WITHOUT resetting in which case it would wipe out that display of the Top Scorer's name.....
Happy Ending: I did get my soft cuddly doll toy. Finally, after visiting so many stores and rummaging through shelves.
PS: I also found the sales assistants at these toy stores quite mystified when I asked for a soft, non-plasticky human-looking doll. They had not seen or heard of one. Maybe I should scout for "doll" stores.
PPS: Here is my video from the American Girl Place. America! The land which invented all things plastic. But they also make the kind of toys I wanted for a small girl to play with.
