Toying with creativity

Father builds playthings out of cardboard for daughter, who prefers them to electronic games, and his online videos are attracting a growing audience, Wang Qian reports.

Zhang Shuai has a sense of fun that is being widely appreciated on the internet. When deliverymen bring cardboard boxes to his doorstep, Zhang soon builds them into interactive toys for his daughter Nini, who is 5.

The 32-year-old father from Zhengzhou, Henan province, has made more than 120 toys from waste cardboard in the past three years. His toy-making videos have gone viral on the internet and many netizens comment that it shows an environment-friendly way to spend quality time with children. His Douyin account has garnered nearly 3.4 million followers.

"When other children ask their parents to buy them a toy, my daughter always asks me to make one," Zhang says.

From replicas of household appliances to folklore-based toys and kits, everything, in Zhang's eyes, can have a hard cardboard copy. Even the classic video games, such as Need for Speed, Tetris and Submarine Game Challenge, can be played in the actual world.

"These are toys or games that people born after 1980 had in childhood that are rarely seen today. I want my daughter to see what her father played with as a boy, building a kind of connection between the two generations," Zhang says.

Although slightly different from the original digital version, Zhang's real-life Tetris, a tile-matching video game created by Russian software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, has also been popular on Twitter. In the footage, Zhang drops handmade tiles into a hole in the top, while Nini takes the pieces from the opening in the bottom and finds slots to fit it on the board. When the entire board is filled, the game is over.

Another homemade toy, cardboard version of Need for Speed, has got more than 1.6 million likes on short video platform Douyin. The screen is made of paper with three lanes with cars and a magnet underneath. In the video, Nini uses a steering wheel to control a metal car to overtake painted cars in its lane with her father rolling the paper.

He also built a maze game, a marble obstacle course, a pool table, a robot WALL-E and many others. His most liked video, a toy bank in the shape of a house, has gained more than 2.7 million likes.

"As people are becoming more obsessed with digital gadgets, there are harmful effects brought by technology, like difficulty in concentration," Zhang says, adding that parents should control their children's screen time.

"My daughter seldom asks for a smartphone or iPad. She prefers to play the games with me," the father says.

He hopes that his video can provide an innovative solution for parents, especially fathers, on how to enjoy a quality time with their children and encourage them to use screens less.

Early last year, his book on how to make toys from cardboard was published by Posts and Telecom Press. He has made the craft skill his career.

Traditionally, around the world, most of the child rearing work has been the responsibility of women. But studies have also highlighted the importance of a father's role during parenting.

A recent study by academics at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and the Lego Foundation agrees that children whose fathers make time to play with them from a very young age may find it easier to control their behavior and emotions as they grow up.

Zhang agrees: "To grow up with Nini will be the most meaningful thing for me."

For Zhang, Nini has been a great helper in making these toys.

"We discuss every detail in making a toy, such as what color to paint and where a press button should be installed," Zhang says.

Besides participation in the creativity process, toy making is inexpensive, albeit time-consuming, according to Zhang.

"For a simple cardboard toy, it takes two or three days to finish. A complicated one can take dozens of days," the father says.

Most families have bought too many toys. But Zhang doesn't have such concerns with Nini, who has participated in the making of most of her toys.

"She always plays with these toys with care. I think her efforts in building them may be the reason. She knows how difficult it is to build a toy," Zhang says.

The girl now has her own toolbox and started coming up with her own ideas for design in toy making with her father.

"I will make more and better toys out of cardboard. I hope more parents will find their own way to spend time with children," the creative father says.

Contact the writer at wangqian@chinadaily.com.cn