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Q: LEGO, the movie and the toy
Well, I just watched the LEGO movie and it made me laugh so much and reminded me of my childhood.
I think its an amazing toy and it helps to inspire creativity in young minds....so you can see where I'm going with this.
I've asked about 5 Chinese friends, workmates, associates did they ever play with LEGO as children and ALL of them were very quick to dismiss it as boring and useless.
I think they do sell it here somewhere, maybe expensive, but such an amazing toy.
Maybe I'm wrong but I also didn't notice the movie here in cinemas.
Would LEGO be suppressed for inspiring creativity? Silly question maybe...just wondered what anyone thought.
I've only ever seen the Lego play sets available at the local Toys 'R Us. Never actually seen any kids playing with them. Most kids seem to just commandeer their parents' iPhone for entertainment. One of the best Christmas presents I ever got was my first Lego set. I was 6 years old and stayed up all night putting that f**ker together!!
Errr, Lego Technic was my main toy. The hours tinkering with that ! You could put together things like an electric car, a crane, even a drawing machine. On top of making me quiet, it definitely helped to give me a sense of engineering. My bro, more the humanities guy, would build large scenes inspired from the books he read, from regular Lego.
In the 80's and 90's, Lego was definitely way too expensive for the large majority of Chinese people. It still is for lower middle class. But those who can afford all the Apple gadgets, fancy cars and more than one home, Lego is very affordable. Yet, does not seems very well known. I remember seeing a kindergarden with a 'Lego' logo, promoting the toy as an educative tool. But it was *that* one, not common at all. I think Lego is very far from being recognized for its value as it can be elsewhere.
Scandinavian:
You know, there is such a thing as Adult Fans of Lego..... you can be a grown up and continue playing.... In any case, Lego is the best reason for having kids, so you can play again without being embarrassed about playing with kids toys
I'll bet you Steve Jobs, Bill Gates etc. all had Lego as a kid.... or maybe Jobs had since he turned out so narrow minded that he needed to do drugs to be creative.
Joking aside. Like MrPrimate. Lego was my main toy, from the big clumsy blocks up to the sophisticated Lego Technics models. It was put together in endless combinations and the hours spent were significant.
I had a really cool big red car where the cylinders and gearbox actually moved. How cool is it before you are 10 to know parts of what makes a car go, that surely inspired me to want to know more.
I think I see Lego a lot in China.... and also a lot of copy products. Strangely all the copy products are military vehicles and such. A nice thing is that there are several shops here that have Lego and they all have small tables where there is always at least on kid playing.... back home the adults would play too.
Anyway. If you enjoyed the movie and the toy, I can recommend "Lego Land", it exists in a couple of places, I've only been to the one in Denmark, was awesome, got my first drivers license there in a Lego car on a Lego road BY FOLLOWING ACTUAL LAWS. Sadly as it turned out, my dad would not let his 10 year old son drive his car with a Lego drivers license.
They have Lego here but you have to realise it's a new concept. I've seen Lego English centres where they combine teaching English with promoting creativity.
You have to remember even Soviet countries didn't have things like Lego a few decades ago so you can imagine China is a little behind the times when it comes to international toy brands like Lego. Plus I would imagine it's quite expensive in the eyes of the Chinese. In addition to that I think the times are changing. Kids just aren't as interesting in building blocks when they can have Transformers or whatever.
