Jottings from the Granite Studio

It’s not too often that I can reference both Aerosmith AND John Prine in the same title.

IHT reports on a fascinating new museum in Singapore that boasts a collection of Chinese toys from 1910 to the 1970s. Toys are so simple and seemingly ubiquitous that it is easy to take for granted their value to historians, but a collection of material culture like this gives us a wonderful perspective on modern Chinese history.

If toys appeal to one’s inner child, they also reflect the social and historical environment of the time when they were made. From Manchu dolls of the 1920s to the Chiang Kai-shek commemorative toys of the 1940s, the “New China” jigsaw puzzles of the 1950s (which incorporate Taiwan) and the Mao’s army girl dolls of the Cultural Revolution, the Museum of Shanghai Toys represent an adults’ world in miniature, bringing visitors back in time through China’s 20th-century history.

The most valuable item in the collection is a “Liberate Taiwan” game from the late-1960s.

“Children’s history,” history that centers on children and the lived experience of childhood, is an intriguing–and difficult–field of research. There are few documents written by children. Those writings that focus on children are generally written from the adult perspective. As a result, most of the historical research on family and kinship discusses children in the context of their place in an adult world: as status symbols or burdens, to be cherished or ignored, and too often as unwitting pawns in the byzantine power-plays of family politics.

The museum is a labor of love for Hong Kong-born graphic designer Martin Chan, who has been collecting antique toys from China for 18 years. Interestingly, Chan purchased most of the toys not in China, but in shops in Southeast Asia and in Europe.

Fascinating story.