Barbie comes back to her Taiwan hometown

TAISHAN, Taiwan - Barbie is making a comeback in a small town in Taiwan that used to churn out the blonde plastic dolls for top U.S. toymaker Mattel nearly 20 years ago.

But instead of strolling off factory belts, Barbie is showing off her outfits at a museum dedicated to the world's most famous fashion doll.

Since it opened last year, the museum in Taishan township on the outskirts of Taipei which is known more for its manufacturing plants and car repair shops than tourism has drawn more than 30,000 visitors.

While larger Barbie museums can be found all over the world, from California to Germany, the exhibits in Taishan are unique because they have been set up by former employees of Mattel which closed the plant as part of the exodus to cheaper manufacturing centres in China and Southeast Asia.

"We were very proud of ourselves because we made the finest quality Barbie dolls for Mattel in the world at that time," said Taishan township chief Lee Kuo-shu.

At its peak, about 8,000 people were on Mattel's payroll, including factory workers, raw material suppliers and housewives contracted for work such as fastening buttons and bow-ties.

Many ex-workers say they still remember how to make a Barbie doll, recalling how they used to curl her hair with chopsticks and steam the strands using rice cookers in the early days.

Round the clock

Doll-making techniques improved rapidly and the Taishan factory lived up to Taiwan's reputation as an efficient outsource manufacturer for major international brands.

The factory would churn out 180 plastic legs in an eight-hour shift when it started operations in 1967 which rose to 2,000 legs later on. Order books were so full that body-shaping moulding machines used to operate around the clock.

"Barbie was something we couldn't afford then. It was a luxury good," said Teng Cheng-ming, who worked at the Mattel factory for 20 years. He said he was paid T$3 (equivalent to 6 pence today) per hour whereas a Barbie doll cost about T$200 at the time.

"Our entire livelihood depended on Barbie. For me, I completed all the most important things in my life there," said Teng, now 57. "I even married a Mattel girl," he added with a broad grin, referring to the nickname given to female staff.

However, as Taiwan joined the ranks of the fast-developing Asian Tiger economies and moved up the production ladder, labour-intensive manufacturing industries began an exodus to neighbouring China and Southeast Asia to save costs.

Taishan was devastated in 1987 when Mattel closed its factory, which had been the mainstay of the town's economy. A third of Taishan's 10,000-plus population was left without jobs and nearby restaurants and satellite factories had to shut down.

Collective memory

But Barbie remained in their collective memories and residents became so nostalgic that they decided to build The Taishan Doll Museum to house an 800-plus collection of dolls.

For Taishan, rediscovering Barbie is not just about its past, but about its future, too.

The town said it hopes to pass on what it considers its cultural heritage to the younger generations. It also wants to re-establish its fame as a doll-making centre with the aim of creating its own Taishan doll one day.

To give its Barbie museum a distinct Taiwan touch, many of the museum's dolls are clad in colourful, handmade outfits in traditional Taiwanese style and that of the aboriginal tribes who were the original inhabitants of the island.

In September, the museum is to take 600 dolls to Canada in its first overseas exhibition.

Mattel could not be reached for comment. Museum curator Wang Kuei-lan said a Mattel executive had visited the exhibit last December and was impressed by its efforts.

- REUTERS