Chinese kids get foreign-brand toys

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 35 minutes ago

SHANGHAI, China - When freelance writer Wang Jian shops for toys for
her 5-year-old son, she's happy to pay extra for Legos blocks and
Japanese-brand train sets.

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The
reason, she and other parents say: Foreign brands enjoy a reputation
for higher quality — a perception reinforced by the product scares of
recent months.
......
China
may be Santa's global workshop, but when it comes to buying playthings
for their own children, Chinese families who can afford it opt for
foreign-brand toys — even if they are made in China.
.......

Shelves are crowded with foreign-brand models and remote-control cars, the ubiquitous Legos from Denmark, Mattel Inc.'s Barbies, Transformers made by Japan's Bandai.

Chinese-brand toys are crammed into a few shelves stacked with dolls
and toddler toys made by Star Moon Toys, a manufacturer in the southern
city of Dongguan that also makes toys for some of the world's biggest
brands.

China's
toy market is still in its infancy. Domestic retail toy sales totaled
$603 million in 2006, according to Chinese government figures. That's a
fraction of the $22 billion in U.S. toy sales last year, according to
the research firm NPD Group.
........
Local-brand yo-yos were piled on a table outside the store — priced at about $1.20.

"The foreign-branded products definitely sell better. Those are the
ones the kids want," said Liu. "The quality's just so much better. The
others, well ..."

Still, local brands are all many families can afford.

Liu Xiaohui, 6, was happy enough with her new Barbie-lookalike and accessories, bought for about $1.60.

A genuine Barbie costs at least 10 times that — more than her mother, Tang Huiqin, who runs a food stall, says she can afford.

"We don't buy her toys often. She shares with her cousins and
her father makes her small wooden toys sometimes," Tang said. "I don't
worry about the quality. It looks OK to me."

>>i have also noticed, that after a while, sometimes yahoo
stories disappear. in a few cases, i was able to find them published
elsewhere, using the "headline". if you read this story, it has
disappeared on yahoo, and you can locate it somewhere else, do not
hesitate to add a hyperlink.

and by random irony, today i
purchased cheap watercolor set in a supermarket (made in china), it
smelled ridiciulously bad, so i have indeed thrown it away. the same
thing occurs in the story. strange? maybe i have taken a look at too
much obscurantism.

no if you do not like an item, and it was not
expensive, you should not try to exchange it, but simply discard it
(and next time, buy something else).