Barbie In China Writ Large.
Many years ago, my youngest daughter, now 11, would email the same-aged daughter of a Chinese lawyer with whom I had worked on a couple of cases and with whom I had become friends. What always amazed me about the correspondence (emails sent to my daughter were translated into English by the Chinese lawyer) between the two girls was how amazingly similar their lives were. Both listed spaghetti as their favorite food, though the Chinese girl was far more impressed by McDonalds than was my daughter. Both loved the social life at school but did not particularly like anything else about it. Both were taking music lessons. Both were doing gymnastics. And both thought Barbie was the coolest thing since....well....since Barbie.
I thought of these emails today after reading the China Herald's recent post, entitled, "One-child policy supports Barbie - Shaun Rein." The post links over to a CBS New interview with China market guru Shaun Rein, where Shaun talks about how China's one child policy could be so favorable for Barbie's China sales. One big difference between the Barbies my daughter had and those of her email pal is that my daughter's were nearly all handed down from her mother, her sister, and from friends, whereas, the Chinese girl had to go out and buy each of hers.
Becuase Barbie is so relatively new to China, in terms of demand, hand me downs, and even image, it will probably take a while for it to develop a nationwide cachet among 6-9 year old females, as it has in the United States. (My daughter would probably kill me if I do not note that she ceased playing with Barbies years ago -- right about the same time she ceased "playing" with friends and began "hanging out" with them). But this newness also means Barbie might have marketing opportunities in China that it does not have in the US. The CBS news clip talks of how Mattel is seeking to market Barbie in China not just to young kids, but to twenty-something women as well. The new Barbie Store in Shanghai even serves a Barbietini, and though I confess to not knowing (or caring) what goes into it, I am betting it is pink.
I find it fascinating how Western products can be marketed anew in China. Examples of this abound. My firm has a client that makes equipment that in turn makes a very high tech computer product. Bear with me here as I essentially make up the numbers (as I have long forgotten the real ones) to make a point. The client's machine is outdated and nobody buys it in the United States any more. The cost to our client to make the machine is about $100,000 and the client sells it for $200,000. Its "competitors" make a $1,000,000 machine and that is what Americans buy. In China, however, there are still a whole slew of companies that need this machine but cannot afford the $1,000,000 version. Those Chinese companies are our client's customers. Our client has virtually no competition at their price level and it almost certainly never will because it would cost another company too much upfront money to warrant making this outdated equipment. Our client has a lock on this ultra-niche market until such time as all Chinese companies can afford the $1,000,000 machine or until used $1,000,000 machines become readily available at a substantially lower price.
For more on old time US products being resurrected in China, check out "China's Resurrection Of The Tang -- Long Shelf Life Is Key."
http://www.chinalawblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/3066
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Name's Oliver. American. Buy you a counterfeit Heineken? There are hundreds of articles on "iconic" Barbie turning 50 and now, as it were, servicing China, including pieces of her cropping up China Law Blog and WSJ China Journal. The... []
Comments
11 year old daughter...
Wait. Are you the Kindle family James Fallows blogged about?
Posted by: Inst | March 12, 2009 5:35 PM
It's true that most urban Chinese youths today live lives that are very similar to those of their American and Australasian cousins. I teach at an all-girls state government high school here in Sydney, and roughly one-third of all of my students are Chinese - the bulk from the mainland. They're constantly travelling back and forwards between the two countries, visiting relations to attend weddings, etc. I know from my many discussions with them, that they find life to be similar in both countries. Some things they prefer about Australia, like the weather, the wildlife, the clean sky. Other things they like better in China, like the shopping and the quality of KFC. For most, neither country is "superior" to the other.
Where Barbie is concerned, I noticed while in Guangzhou once, that in China she has been localised - dark hair, beautiful almond-shaped eyes and dressed in a colourful qi pao. Those of you who have read my essay on China's globalisation (on my chinadiscourse.net site) will know that I have a particular interest in the various ways in which the Chinese approptriate foreign goods and ideas - in ways that are culturally-specific - a way to modernise without sacrificing their sense of Chineseness.
Posted by: Mark Anthony Jones | March 12, 2009 6:20 PM
"Barbie" is an example of Class Struggle---the oppression of women by the ruling class.
Posted by: James | March 12, 2009 7:36 PM
"Barbie"--Oh God! The despair of it all!
If a society teaches its children that slavery is freedom, then all hope is lost!
Posted by: James | March 12, 2009 8:19 PM
I've lived in China for nearly 10 years and am yet to see a Chinese girl of any age with a doll. But that's in the far west. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country. However, my instinct says it's not.
Posted by: Jacko | March 12, 2009 9:02 PM
Growing up in Solvang,California (The Danish Capital of America..No passport needed...a great place to live,work and shop,etc...)one of our neighbors was a moldmaker and had a small statuary and gift shop. He claims to have invented the Barbie when he was an employee at the Mattel factory in LA. Apparently,his wife(who just so happened to be named Barbara)was the inspiration. After he pitched it to the front office without result,he was amazed how the Mattel CEO's wife had claimed to be the "inventor". As a Mattel employee, they had all rights to the thing anyway and he wouldn't have received any proceeds anyway. He says it's not about the money.(yeah...right) he would just like some recognition. It may be a crock or some kind of Barbie urban legend. But I will say.... you can't look at his wife and daughter's eyes and not see Barbie.
Posted by: Lang Lang | March 13, 2009 5:48 AM
Inst,
Fallows has never interviewed me. We own one Kindle 2 for the entire family....
Posted by: Dan | March 13, 2009 7:58 AM
James,
I think it is going a bit overboard to claim Barbie teaches "slavery." But hey, that's just me.
Posted by: Dan | March 13, 2009 8:00 AM
Fallows reported that one of his contacts; their family's daughter was an electronics addict until they bought a kindle. Now she's constantly attached to the kindle and books carried in that medium.
Posted by: Inst | March 13, 2009 10:58 AM
"(I)t will probably take a while for it (Barbie) to develop a nationwide cachet among 6-9 year old females, as it has in the United States."
Yes, a very long while, because the girls clogging the Hello Kitty outlets are cutesy 16-20 year-olds and I expect the same for Barbie, it's not a 7 year-old child buying expensive eye liner and drinking a Barbietini. My time and experience in Shanghai is similar to Jacko in the West of the mainland who has yet to see a Chinese girl of any age with a doll, same for Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.
Posted by: Scott Loar | March 13, 2009 6:01 PM
MAJ, your new website looks great but the content is way too academic for most bloggers to be bothered with. You need to dumb it all down if you want visitors. I'm looking forward to your promised essay on China's Rule of Law regardless.
As for China Barbie's "beautiful almond-shaped eyes"...Mmmmm.....I worry about you sometimes MAJ. Remember, she's ONLY a piece of plastic!!!!!!
Posted by: tinman | March 13, 2009 9:40 PM
Dolls are a western concept, hence they were called Yang Wawa (western baby) when they were first introduced to China.
But Chinese children, at least the ones who are able to afford toys, have dolls. I had at least two or three when I was little. You haven't noticed perhaps because they don't carry their dolls, blankies, pacifiers outside of the home. It seems Chinese children are expected to part with their baby items (and potty trained) fairly early on in their childhood.
I hope Barbie never makes it big in China. Down with Mattel! One thing that's great about Chinese women is they are still fairly comfortable with their bodies and look more natural as opposed to the more put together looks (and often plastic looks) of Korean and Japanese women. I know it's becoming more of a problem with the infusion of foreign culture at all, but I hope they don't change in this respect, and do not end up thinking that women should look like the monstrous Barbie. I'd be freaked out if there is a real woman with that kind of body shape.
Posted by: jms | March 14, 2009 9:54 AM
"One thing that's great about Chinese women is they are still fairly comfortable with their bodies and look more natural..."
That's simply not true, contradicted by the high incidence of Caesarean sections to preserve the woman's figure and the almost universal refusal to breast-feed the baby, resorting instead to bottle-feeding. Some ignoramuses may think bottle formula superior and more nourishing than breast milk but the more common reason is to supposedly prevent sagging breasts, and so mothers knead and massage the breasts to retain shape. There is common instruction on how to do this properly.
As the standard of living rises does anyone really believe that mainland Chinese woman will be different from those in Taiwan and Hong Kong and eschew plastic surgery to the epicanthic folds, mammaries, gluteus maximus, chin and nose bridge? Big eyes, straight nose, pointed chin, big tits, tight ass - that's the standard of beauty, and when cosmetic surgery can finally lengthen legs watch the lines of dyed-haired ladies form in mainland China.
Barbie will be big in China, and among the cutesy 16-20 year-olds who pay RMB100+ for Barbie eyeliner.
Posted by: Scott Loar | March 17, 2009 6:05 PM
Here's another discussion on the Barbie phenomenon
Posted by: jade | March 17, 2009 8:29 PM
I can't say I've seen many kids with dolls. These days, it's the DS (yes, even the girls - different from the US where electronic toys are "for boys")
Posted by: Bob | April 20, 2009 1:14 AM