Kenny and Stan- the South Park boys. A favourite with China’s adults.

Toys are "for children" - every dictionary says so. Soon though, this definition may need to change as toy stores are beginning to say "no" to kids.

"One day, I realized there were many adults like me obsessed with toys," says Peng Lei, owner of the Clockwork Monster (Fatiao Guai Shou) toy shop in Beijing. "So I decided to open a store for them, for people who hadn't had enough fun in their childhood." He put a sign on the door, "For aged 16 and up only."

The store does not let kids in because "they can hardly understand our culture here," says Peng, 27, who also sings in Newpants, a punk-rock band "And some of the items have age limits for safety concerns."

Children's eyes

The toy culture Peng is a part of is not just about playing-for-fun, say psychologists. It's also a way adults can get to see the world through children's eyes.

Peng certainly looks at the world like a child. His cellar is more like a kid's bedroom, stuffed with film star toys - Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) escaping on her motorbike; Gandorf, the wizard (the Lord of the Rings); and the four boys from "South Park" swearing at each other. Peng says there are over 1,000 such toys in his store, though he hasn't tried counting.

Kyle and Cartman - the South Park boys. A favourite with China’s adults.

Like similar toy shops in China, the items in Peng's store fall into three categories: plastic statues of action figures, movie and comic stars; cute models of cartoon figures from Japan and Hong Kong, like Hello Kitty; and traditional Chinese tin-toys.

Clockwork Monster though, is the pioneer of such shops and the centre of Beijing's toy culture. And since opening in 2001 it has attracted customers from most provinces in China, and even abroad.

Now though, adult toy shops and communities are appearing in other big cities. Guangzhou, China's biggest production centre of toys, even has a cartoon-related toy street - most of its visitors are adults.

According to Wu Jianjian, founder of Dongxing-yihua, a toy club in Beijing, most of the costumers in adult toy stores are artists, cartoonists, ad designers and film makers. But college students addicted to Japanese pop culture are the fastest growing type of customer, he says.

Different tastes

Each toy though, attracts its own fan base.

The sweet Japanese figures, for instance, are bought by trendy schoolgirls. The bloody American monsters by cool, semi-mature men. And tin-toys? Well, they're bought by romantics and people who care little for today's tastes.

"I like the American toys because they're like art. They're so vivid, they can be used to decorate your house," says Wang Xingang, a 25-year-old cartoonist and Star Wars fan. "I am also inspired by their creative shapes when I am designing."

According to Wang, American and Japanese toys, by-products of those countries' pop culture, represent the mainstream among toy collectors.

As always, some people are out of the mainstream. Peng Lei, the punk, is fond of tin-toys, toys that haven't been popular for three decades. These include metal cars, animals and robots, which make simple movements thanks to a clockwork mechanism inside their tin shells.

"It's a kind of nostalgia. We were the last generation to play with such toys in childhood. Although people would have forgotten them, they are really stylish for me," says Peng.

Though clumsy and unattractive, tin-toys are full of personality and originality. "During that period, designers really put their own ideas into toy making rather than trying to please mass tastes," he explains.

Many adults though, don't care whether the toys are modern, chic or antique - they're just following fashion and buying toys because it is the "in-thing" to do.

"It's just a trend. You don't need to ask why and when you love something, do you?" says Cai Jinyi, a middle school teacher who came all the way from Henan Province to Clockwork Monster to buy a made-in-Japan plastic Astro Boy (A-Tongmu), a model of a 50-year-old Japanese cartoon figure.

Whether they're following fashion or not, the one thing that does unite adult toy lovers, say psychologists, is they find it hard to cope with modern society.

"Adults need toys much more than kids," says Luo Hui, a psychologist from Chengdu.
"In a child's world everything is a toy. But this isn't true when you grow up. Then you need to play with toys as you have nothing else.

"And today adults have too many burdens. Playing with toys can take their minds off such things," says Luo. "It's good to live such a simple life in a toy-transformed world."

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