Toy Story

From faithful companion to social learning material

By Kwok Kar Bo

A decade ago, children played with paper dolls, with paper dresses and accessories. Somtimes, they chased one another with pistols filled with beans. While these games exist now only in the memories of adults, toys today play a special role for the new generation.

“I don’t have any stuffed animals, as I have an allergy to the fur,” said Miss Lam Wai Sum, recalling her childhood. She is a Year 2 student in the Department of Translation at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Her favourite playthings were Barbie and Cindy dolls. She said she enjoyed trying different kinds of clothes on them.

“Now I also play computer games sometimes. My brother has a game called Romance of the Three Kingdoms with interesting content. But it is very time-consuming because the game involves lots of strategies and decision-making processes.”

“Yet I miss the playthings of the past. Today’s games demand people’s reactions without much variety. If I played with a doll, I could act as a teacher this moment, and perform some other role at other times. This provokes children’s imaginations,” said Miss Lam.

The Luk family, which has two boys and two girls, has Super Nintendo, but they have other diversions as wekk.

Luk Wai Shing, 7, loves Four-wheel Drive and BB Warrior the most. BB warrior is a robot model produced in Japan.

“The mobile car is speedy, and BB Warrior can be transformed to other shapes. The appearance is cool,” said he.

Luk Wai Fung, who is in Primary 6, likes Lego, a kind of erector set.

His 15-year-old sister Luk Sau Wai enjoyed playing with her Barbie doll while she was small. She thought that Barbie was beautiful, and the utensils, like cups, were lovely and delicate.

She seldom plays video games now, as she thinks the background screen is monotonous and boring.

Dr. Daniel Shek Tan Lei of the Department of Social Work at The Chinese University of Hong Kong said that the popularity of video and computer games will widen the gap between boys’ and girls’ choices of entertainment forms rather than narrow them.

Dr. Shek said, “The content of many video games is masculine. Street Fighter and mahjong games which show a lady taking off her clothes when the player wins are cases in point. The target of these games is set solely towards males. Few women go to video game centres, since this is not socially encouraged,” said Dr. Shek.

Mr. Lee Chi Kau, 21, a business administration student at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, had many toys in his childhood: model cars, robots, remote control cars, plastic swords, a pistol filled with beans and, later, a pistol with plastic bullets.

Yet, according to him, his most favourite childhood activity was fishing in reservoirs.

“I love creatures so I loved catching fish,” said Mr. Lee.

Now he plays computer games sometimes such as Minesweeper and Doom. Doom is an adventuresome story about fighting against monsters. It has 3-dimensional effects.

Said he: “Toys in the past were cheaper and of greater variety. I could change the structure of a model plane myself. They were more inspirational than the toys nowadays.”

Mr. Ng Wah Ming is a chemistry student who disliked computer games and preferred stuffed animals like Garfield and Little XO. He had few toys in childhood, so he spent time with other children instead.

Dr. Shek does not think that stuffed animals are so gender-typed as people perceive. Stuffed animals can also provide a sense of security to small children, no matter boys or girls.

Ip Chun Man, 7, and Ip Chun Wai, 8, are brothers living in Ho Man Tin. They have various kinds of toys ranging from action movie dolls like Ninja Turtles to soft toys like a musical white bear.

Their parents said they did not have a clear preference on toys. And new toys are, of course, always their favourites.

Mr. Peter Yeung, the salesperson of Lup Shun Toys Limited, said that they have changed the main focus of manufacturing.

“Our factory produced toy revolvers in the past. But as people have come to hate war in recent years, the sales of firearm toys is not good unless there are cartoons or movies that lead the way, like the popular movie Power Ranger. This then can help ensure satisfactory sales.

“Therefore, the mainstream of new products this year inclines to be trendy and those which can lead children to learn, like tool sets and baking sets.”

Indeed, the stereotyping theory that certain toys discriminate against either boys or girls does exist in Hong Kong, but the phenomenon is not obvious.

Said Dr. Shek: “Toys are lifeliess and the underlying nature of toys is added by people. It is the ‘significant others’ who guide the children to find out the meaning when playing with a toy, by attaching meaning to that thing.

“Significant others” is a sociological term. It means people who have an intimate relationship with the subject. They serve as models for social learning.

“Indeed, toys themselves are not so gender-typing. While playing with it is a process of socialization in which children are taught to be male or female, and to behave in the so-called appropriate ways,” said Dr. Shek.

He said that at the preschool stage, the most influential people are parents. After that, peers, schooling and the mass media will help in the shaping process of a kid’s character. These influences reinforce gender-typing.

“Since traditional Chinese culture emphasizes the male figure, and the identification of father-son relationship is so strong that the concept of masculinity is deeply rooted in people’s mind,” he said.

“Therefore boys are not encouraged to be gentle and vulnerable. This is especially true when father passes ideas to son in daily livings. That is why sissy boys are more unacceptable than tomboys.

“When the idea of sex role is not yet fixed in children’s set of mind, parents play an important role in the socialization process and their own conceptions on gender role can be reflected in child-rearing,” he said.

Hence the positioning of parents in gender role is important in stereotyping children’s idea.

In daily life, Dr. Shek provided miniature kitchen set for his son. Though the boy prefers models, he plays with the set sometimes.

“The best way to select toys is not to choose gender-related toys. More importantly, parents should breakdown the stereotype in the adult world,” said he.

April 1996