Barbies In Vietnam

From Rohcmc@pd.state.gov Mon Nov 17 13:45:05 2003

Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 08:17:00 +0700

From: "Ogburn, Robert" <Rohcmc@pd.state.gov>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: FW: discovery in hanoi

...and Barbie dolls have now entered the local market. There is a toy store off Le Duan that has them, as well as the Metro warehouse stores. I recall Mart Stewart saying that he had queried teachers in the Delta this past summer and only one or two had ever heard of Barbies. Is this an economic development indicator or a cultural devolution indicator???

robert o.

-----Original Message-----

From: Gilbert [mailto:MGilbert@ngcsu.edu]

Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 1:17 AM

To: Vietnam Studies Group

Subject: Re: FW: discovery in hanoi

At this site, I discovered also that Britany Spears has been discoved the by Vietnamese media, though I may not be the first to discover this.

Professor Marc Jason Gilbert

Department of History

North Georgia College and State University

Dahlonega, Georgia 30597

Phone: (706) 864-1911

Fax: (706) 864-1873

E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu

From MGilbert@ngcsu.edu Mon Nov 17 13:47:24 2003

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 13:09:58 -0500

From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: FW: discovery in hanoi

There may be a good student paper in the marketing parallels raised by "Barbie in the Delta". Just as American cigarette companies push their products in more distant lands as the popularity of their products decline in the land of their birth, so may Barbie, who is losing ground in the USA to a hip-hop inspired set of dolls. When _these_ arrive in the market at, say, Vinh Long, Barbie may have no place to go but Burma, regrettably so, as their own puppet traditions are very close to my heart (and all over my house). But I think the Delta remains safe from Hip Hop for now.

I did buy an Indian Barbie while in Madras (Chennai). My god-daughter said she would not speak to me unless I came back with it.

Marc

From dbiggs@u.washington.edu Mon Nov 17 13:47:33 2003

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 11:24:56 -0800 (PST)

From: D. Biggs <dbiggs@u.washington.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Barbie in the Delta

Dear List,

I'm sorry I missed the first part of the thread, but Marc's title made me laugh at the thought of so many dolls spreading out into the toy stalls of markets across the Mekong Delta. I dare to say that Mattel won't stand a chance of earning the kinds of profits that Philip Morris-VN does because there is a flood of plastics--toys, washbins, robot transformers--that moves here from southern China on every old, rickety xe do. It would be interesting to see whether children's toys can become controlled status symbols the same way that Hennessy, Remy Martin, Marlboro and other adult pleasures do. One thing that has always impressed me in the countryside is the way that children can improvise very complex games using the most rudimentary "toys"--flip flops, cardboard as sleds on sand dunes, plastic bags, palm fronds, cracked washtubs, and on and on. Almost anything, barbie-ized or not, may become a "toy". I suppose a student paper could quickly turn into a sophisticated analysis if someone was to think about controlling children's desire for "toys you can't live without that you saw on tv or the internet". As that Saigon disco song goes, this may be an extension of the "barbie world: life in plastic, its fantastic!"

Cheers,

David Biggs-UW

From thompsonc2@southernct.edu Mon Nov 17 13:47:44 2003

Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2003 15:44:47 -0500

From: C. Michele Thompson <thompsonc2@southernct.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Barbie in hanoi

Dear Everyone,

When I was in Ha Noi for most of the Summer of 1999 my landlady's 5 year old grandaughter had about 10 of them and adored them and all of their various outfits. However at that time, at least as far as I know, all of them had been given to her by relatives or friends of the family who had purchased them while traveling abroad. They had also found a local seamstress willing to make new outfits for the dolls.

cheers

Michele

From OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl Mon Nov 17 13:47:50 2003

Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 09:11:03 +0100

From: Oscar Salemink <OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: Barbie in hanoi

I have lived from 1996 to 2001 in Hanoi with my family including two daughters, and was forced to notice that somewhere in 1997/8 barbie dolls and lego started to become available in the local market, with little selection and at inflated prices. My daughters told me to go get them in Bangkok instead.... In the late 1990s special Lego stores sprang up in various places.

Oscar Salemink

From Mart.Stewart@wwu.edu Mon Nov 17 13:47:57 2003

Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 06:48:38 -0800

From: Mart Stewart <Mart.Stewart@wwu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Hanoi Barbie

And now Barbie is in Hanoi in full force -- in a shop completely, wall to wall, ceiling to floor, to her. With a few Kens for good measure, and accessories in the center of the shop. I don't know who is buying -- the prices are high and the shop was empty except for a napping clerk when I passed by early this week.

Mart Stewart

From MGilbert@ngcsu.edu Tue Nov 25 09:58:17 2003

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 11:50:00 -0500

From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: From Veg. Oil Tin Toys to Mass Market

Glad to see David got into the spirit of my post on Barbie in the Delta. I have made a point of taking up toys produced by children since 1986, when I realized that market forces were destroying even the desire for such craft. I have children-produced cardboard templates for the making of paper buses in Tanzania, home made vegetable oil tin versions of those buses and the mass-market oil tin version of the same buses. In HCMC, I remember a similar pattern moving much faster, with mass produced toy helicopters made of oil tin material which never carried any grease rapidly replacing the hand made variety in the 90s. I am sure we have all seen these oil tin products in urban markets; they are omnipresent--an interesting faux-poverty cultural artifact of globalization. Are they all now made in China, I wonder?

Professor Marc Jason Gilbert

Department of History

North Georgia College and State University

Dahlonega, Georgia 30597

Phone: (706) 864-1911

Fax: (706) 864-1873

E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu

From hhtai@fas.harvard.edu Tue Nov 25 09:58:55 2003

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 12:05:51 -0500

From: Hue Tam H. Tai <hhtai@fas.harvard.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: From Veg. Oil Tin Toys to Mass Market

Marc:

In 1995, I visited professor Van Tao in his home in Hanoi. His 8-year old grandson was there, playing beneath a massive ancestral altar. He was playing Super Mario. When I was a child in Saigon in the 1950s, all we had to play with were marbles for boys and chopsticks for girls.

Hue-Tam

From MGilbert@ngcsu.edu Tue Nov 25 09:59:47 2003

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:08:56 -0500

From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: New Game: Bac Tranh's Maze of Mystery

Perhaps this is why I am now interested in Vietnamese spirit possession. We need to find some subtext to draw the child to look up at the altar, not necessarily to worship there, but to know that life's puzzles are more engaging and the experience of one second of life's mysteries is worth more than a lifetime of video play. [What a hopeless romantic I am!]

However, there is a simple commercial film called The Seven Faces of Doctor Lau (with Tony Randall as Lao Tzu) that can do that. So it is not impossible. But we may have to wait until all the world's 17-25 year olds become middle aged when, for most, toys will lose their attraction.

As darkness falls, The games box is put away;

Temple bells beckon.

Marc

Professor Marc Jason Gilbert

Department of History

North Georgia College and State University

Dahlonega, Georgia 30597

Phone: (706) 864-1911

Fax: (706) 864-1873

E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu

From bcampdvs@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 10:26:43 2004

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 09:54:44 -0800 (PST)

From: bradley camp davis <bcampdvs@u.washington.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: From Veg. Oil Tin Toys to Mass Market

Marc-

a side note. when i was an intern at the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, AL, my department organized a summer school for grade schoolers. we hired an "mbira" (hand pianos) maker from zimbabwe i think it was. he demanded that we acquire 30 olive oil cans for the kids to use for their mbiras. he said it would be more authentic, that the polished wooden ones are generally too expensive for children.

Bradley Davis

University of Washington

From MGilbert@ngcsu.edu Thu Apr 15 10:26:53 2004

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:19:11 -0500

From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: From Veg. Oil Tin Toys to Mass Market

Odd, how somehow we survived such unsafe toys of tin and wood and metal! And jungle gyms without rubber landing pads! Only jungle! (so to speak).

Thanks; it is not often I think of hand pianos!

Marc

Professor Marc Jason Gilbert

Department of History

North Georgia College and State University

Dahlonega, Georgia 30597

Phone: (706) 864-1911

Fax: (706) 864-1873

E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu