Cute cute cute
(Little wedding candy boxes: Suzhou, China)
Ying brought these little people home from work yesterday; a workmate had just got married and shoveled lots of these little couples into the workplace to celebrate. Ying presented them to me as they look in the bottom right image. I was immediately smitten – they were so much fun, much more than the average Western style wedding favours that usually comprise a miniature floral bouquet or a chintzy wrapped chocolate. This is a whole new game of ‘hide the candy’ involving stuffing it into the faces of a cardboard bride and groom. If they didn’t have such surprised expressions, their enormous teeth would be rather unsettling, but to me, they are a perfectly wonderful example of contemporary Asian charm. Even more enjoyable is the product of an internet ordering error which has made the bride much more hefty than the little groom.
Chinese people, but predominantly the younger end, are obsessed with ‘cute’. Girls wear overlong hoodies like dresses almost reaching their knees, presumably to make them look smaller and therefore cuter. Younger females here like to dress like little girls and I suppose the men must favour that decision. All leggings sold in Chinese shops are trimmed with lace and ribbons, anything to create femininity and to prevent an item being standard. There are teddy bears and bunny rabbits all over the mainstream fashion scene here and don’t even start on the kids. Their chubby cherub faces peer out of all manner of round-eared hats and cartoon covered jumpsuits. Stationary and stickers too are coated in furballs of fun, with flowers, smiling faces, miniature kitchen items, etc., etc. Japanese characters like the infamous ‘Hello Kitty’ (and also Korea’s ‘Bono the Bear’) have a good run here and are sold on anything from all in one pyjamas to sweets and books. I think I’ll just go as far as this miniature married couple. Oh, and ‘Fish Face’ the tiger. But that’s it, I swear.
Sorry for my brevity yesterday, my freelance work is still ongoing but hopefully today is the last of it for a while!
