At first sight, Beijing Cartoon Art Museum is not much more than a non-descript four-story building in Sanjianfang Township, in eastern Beijing. Just inside the front door, however, is a massive LCD screen playing cartoons. With each footstep deeper into the building, a fantastic animated universe unfolds before your eyes: Its first floor houses every variety of toys including Barbie dolls, while Chinese-made animation plays non-stop in its mini cinema on the first basement floor.

Optical Biology

Optical research has proven the persistence of vision - the phenomenon that an image lingers on the retina for 0.34 seconds. So, a sequence of images rapidly displayed can create the illusion of motion. Animation was born from this theory. Facial expressions and movements are drawn into a sequence of images, which are then photographed one after another to create an animated production.

In 1831, Joseph Antoine Plateau invented an early stroboscopic device. It consisted of two disks, one with small equidistant radial windows, through which the viewer could look, and the other containing a sequence of images. When the two disks rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows and the images created an animated effect. Such devices eventually led to the earliest animated cartoons.

On the wall at the entrance to the museum hangs a similar device demonstrating the fundamental science behind animation.

Barbie Dolls

Fifty-three years ago, an adult-figured doll was created and its popularity soon spread throughout the world. Her name was Barbie.

Ruth Handler is credited with designing the doll, which she named after her daughter Barbara. Barbie made her debut at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. This date is still used as Barbie’s official birthday. In 1964, the U.S. toy company, Mattel, began producing Barbie dolls. Around 350,000 Barbie dolls were sold during the first year of production.

Despite the fact that she has been dubbed the most popular doll of the 20th century and an American cultural icon, Barbie has not been as successful in the Chinese market as in the rest of the world. In March 2011, the Barbie Flagship Store in Shanghai, the largest of its kind in the world, closed just after two years of operation. Toys based on cartoon characters are more popular with Chinese kids under six, so the adult-figured doll has not been well-received in the Chinese market.