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Seen the Barbie movie? No worries... Eryk saw it for you, and he noticed one thing they didn't mention in the film: from 1967-1987, most of the world's Barbie dolls were made in Taiwan. Factories in the tiny town of Taishan 泰山 (now a district of New Taipei City) churned out millions of these well-made toys before Mattel moved operations to cheaper manufacturing locations. Plus, we've got info on traditional Taiwanese toys and John ends this week's episode with a strange tale of "possessed" paper dolls.
Cover via Mattel promotional material/Wallpaper Flare
Below: Translation says, "Did you know? During the 1970s, half the world's Barbies came from Taiwan!" Via Facebook/Taiwan in Hamburg.
Below: Barbie creator Ruth Handler with an assortment of Barbie and Mattel products (1961) Via Wikimedia Commons
Below: A series of "Oriental Barbies" (Via Instagram/Landy.Collector)
Below: "Christie," Barbie's Black friend (1977), and the first Black Barbie (1980).
Below: A traditional local toy known in Japanese as a Kendama. Read more about many other local toys HERE.
Below: Australian actor Margot Robbie greets fans at a showing of the smash hit move Barbie - a July 2023 film that, as of August 2023, has earned US$1.198 billion at the box office.
Below: Perhaps Taiwan's most famous person with the English name Barbie, is Barbie Hsu 徐熙媛, a singer, actor, and TV host also know as "大S."
She is best known for her leading role in the television series Meteor Garden (2001). She is also a life-long vegetarian and is pictured below posing for a PETA campaign.
Check our very first episode, the story of a very white man who showed up in London in 1703... and claimed to be from Formosa. Or try a foodie episode from Season 3. Or, for those who want some harder-core history, hear the tale of the Lockheed U-2 pilot Wang Hsi-chueh 王錫爵, who became was famous for defecting to the PRC by hijacking China Airlines Flight 334 on May 3, 1986.
