Where are the traditional toys?

(Baonghean) -Mid-Autumn Festival is coming very soon, in addition to moon cakes, children are also interested in buying toys by adults. This year's children's toy market has a variety of designs and types, however, products using chemicals, toxic dyes and violent toys tend to increase, overwhelming traditional toys that educate children's personality.

Violent and toxic toys abound

Vinh Market is the largest wholesaler of children's toys in Nghe An. Not only toy sellers in the city but also those from neighboring provinces such as Ha Tinh, Thanh Hoa... also come here to get their goods. Not only in the temple, the short Le Huan street right next to the market has dozens of wholesale and retail toy stores. On the days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the number of wholesale and retail customers coming here to get their goods is always bustling. According to observations at toy stores in this area, in addition to superhero-shaped toys, characters in movies and comics such as "fruit robots", "speed racing"... on Bibi TV channel are all simulated. However, the most popular are still plastic guns, for only 10,000-30,000 VND you can own a gun with sound, all kinds of colors from single guns to compound guns, guns that shoot long laser beams, ...

The children's toy market lacks educational value but is full of violence and toxicity. Therefore, the press has warned of many cases of violence due to the influence of games, and many cases affecting children's lives due to exposure to toxic and unsafe toys. The emergency department of Nghe An Children's Hospital has witnessed many cases of children being hospitalized due to swallowing toys, children having foreign objects entering their airways, or having reduced vision due to exposure to toys with flickering laser lights... "Currently, many children are addicted to playing bubble blowing. These are plastic bottles containing diluted chemicals (soap) and an attached stick. When dipping the stick in and blowing, blue, red, purple, and yellow bubbles fly everywhere, not only dangerous to the respiratory tract but also a high risk of dermatitis if accidentally stuck to the hands and feet, especially for children with allergies," warned Dr. Hiep of the Dermatology Department (Children's Hospital).

Over the years, the Nghe An Market Management Department has organized many campaigns on the occasion of Mid-Autumn Festival and June 1 to inspect this item. Many dangerous and toxic toys and smuggled goods were confiscated. Witnessing many campaigns to destroy illegal goods by the Department, we can see that dangerous and toxic goods are traded in the market too much. According to the Department's staff, most of these goods are smuggled mainly through Lang Son and Mong Cai.

The market lacks traditional toys.


Authorities: Provincial Market Management Department, police destroy violent and dangerous toys.


Ms. Nguyen Phuong Lan - Teacher at Hoa Mi Private School makes toys for children.

Where are the traditional toys?

Not only on the streets specializing in selling children's toys or toy stalls in supermarkets, but in any alley, people can easily find cheap toys but they have many potential risks, especially the selling points in front of kindergartens. Understanding the psychology of children, many businesses take advantage of this to display cheap toys of unknown origin. It can be said that the market is lacking traditional toy corners that light up fairy tale dreams for boys and girls so that they can learn more about the quintessence of the previous generation. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, many parents complain that finding domestically produced toys, educational toys, and safe for children is not easy. Lions, dragon heads, masks, tin ship paper or figurines made by artisans are really hard to find in the toy market of Vinh City. Ms. Giang in Hung Dung ward lamented: “My husband and I have two sons, so they don’t like cooking games or dolls, they only like tanks, guns, and plastic swords. Last time I bought them a toy, a domestically produced wooden train from a store on Nguyen Van Cu street, but they only played with it once and then threw it in a corner of the house without paying any more attention.”

At the Center for Books and School Equipment - the unit that is considered to have the most safe toys, the quantity is also too small, only modestly occupying a small corner. Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan - the manager here said that the sales of this item alone only accounted for less than 10% of the center's sales. Previously, they imported mainly Chinese goods, but recently, responding to the campaign "Vietnamese people prioritize using Vietnamese goods", the company imported quite a lot of Saigon goods, but to be honest, the domestic toy sector is still monotonous, the features are inferior to Chinese goods. For example, toy cars are very popular with children, Chinese goods are diverse, they can run while making fun sounds, and when encountering obstacles, they can turn around and continue running while domestic goods cannot do the same. "To be honest, if we do not import Chinese goods, what goods do we use to serve customers?" is a concern that manufacturers need to research and understand.

Unable to use unsafe toys in children's education, many kindergartens have to make their own toys. Ms. Nguyen Phuong Lan - Teacher of Hoa Mi Private Kindergarten, a teacher who has won many high prizes in toy competitions for children at the school and the city for many years, said: In the education sector, we always appreciate the effect of toys on the development of children's personalities. Therefore, making toys is one of the criteria for evaluating and classifying kindergarten teachers. From boxes, cans, and seemingly discarded items, the skillful hands of teachers have turned them into meaningful toys. These are trains made of cardboard, mini supermarkets made of cans, milk cartons, etc.

Indeed, without timely guidance from families, schools and manufacturers who do not study children's tastes to add age-appropriate features, not only will domestic toy market share gradually be lost right at home, but more importantly, traditional toys with educational value for children will be absent...

Thu Huyen