Next day I was not able to secure Labubu from the original POP Mart store, I decide to comfort myself with a visit to POP, a 10-hectare amusement park of the company in Central Beijing-and perhaps the most clear sign that he intends to come to Lunch Disney. (“Our art toys are like Disney movies,” says Wang A unique company. “They use movies to reach consumers, cultivate fans and build IP and fan communities. We do it through artistic toys.”)
Pop Land is about 1 percent of the size of Universal Studios in Beijing and Disneyland in Shanghai, but unlike other amusement parks, it lies right next to the consulate and a few metro stops from the most populated business areas in Beijing. It is in the green urban space, which meant that Pop Mart was not allowed to move even one tree. Instead, the company renovated the abandoned building on the property and called it Molly’s castle. The deciduous area has become Labubu Adventure Forest, although it looks much brighter and more child -friendly than the original show of Lung. At one end of the forest, the actors placed the “Warriors training camp” in Labubu full -size suits.
I stop at lunch in the park restaurant, on the third floor of the Molly castle. The moment I sit at the table and inform the waitress, which I came alone, he places in a chair with a 23-inch plush doll opposite me. My friend is Zimomo, the male head of the Labubu clan in the original book for children and one of the rarest pop products sold. During my lunch, other pop visitors come to ask if I bought a winter doll myself and if they can do it. I feel that I’m going with a celebrity.
At the table next to me there is a mother with her juvenile daughter. I ask what brought them here. My mother tells me that her daughter, who turns 4 years ancient in less than a month, found and fell in love with Labub, watching movies at Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok. She thought about buying two winter dolls for her daughter, but they cost $ 200 on the resale market, so she is still debating. Only the day before, she saw in social media that her friend’s daughter had a birthday party about Labubu, on which the room was stuffed with dozens of uncommon Labubus. He shows me movies from the party on his phone. “Her mother paid a lot for getting them,” he says.
Since I started my own Labubu hunt, I knew that there was an option to go to the seller, often mentioned in China by a slang term Huangni (literally “yellow ox”). I have heard from Dong, Popu client since 2018 in Shanghai that many Huangni know uses bots monitoring social media for complementary ads and take fresh goods that are falling. Dong paid a miniature amount for joining group chats, in which Huangni reveals early information. He calls himself Fenni Now – between the fan and Huangni. He has already collected most labubu products that has ever been released, so he only buys fresh to sell to other fans for profit. (Which sounds to me, as if he was Huangni.)