Toy Street

In search of marbles I had to forage the streets of Hong Kong. Mainstream toy stores nowadays like Toys ‘R Us only stock the new, high-tech, “in” toys, but when I ask if they have simple marbles their automatic answer is “no.” I eventually found out about Tai Yuen Street, aka Toy Street, in Wan Chai that brings me into a bustling world of local street markets filled with the sounds of everyone trying to sell their wares. Lined along the sidewalk behind the street stalls are the toy stores stocked with old-style and simple toys like Play-Doh, wind-up robots and… marbles! The marble designs were quite homogeneous and plain, as opposed to all the wide varieties available to me as a kid (I remember boulders, godfathers, and peawees!), but nonetheless they were marbles I could use in my prototyping.

{ Tags: hong kong, marbles, thesis, toys }