BARBIE or FULLA or BOTH ????

Today I’d like to talk about the no1 toy for little girls…..DOLLS…

I remember when I was small, I had this one beautiful waist-height plastic doll which my father bought solely for me from Padang Besar( I am the youngest girl in my family ) It had a pair of beautiful blue eyes which could blink ..I forgot whether it had a name…….I stopped playing with it when I moved to Kuching and started my primary school there . The reason why I stopped playing ??? Not that I didn’t want to but as we were moving out from Melaka , we had a lot of stuff to pack and at that time I already had my little brother ( my youngest brother is 5 years younger than I am ), so my mom told me just to leave the doll ( it’s already ‘old’ with one hand missing )… so that was it…the end of my doll days !!

When my daughters , sofie and maya were little they would go out playing with their dolls ( suzana, fara, tasya, boboi…just to name a few of their dolls ) but they had no expensive and branded dolls like……BARBIE…… I couldn’t accept the idea of having a doll with a perfect figure and a perfect mode of life …. And it was way too expensive then… I could buy 5 no brand dolls instead of a Barbie….

Then came my little mimi…… she adores Barbie and even wants us to call her Barbie….

Barbie...looks so gorgeous.... is it for real ???

So who’s Barbie ???

Barbie was invented in 1959 by Ruth Handler (co-founder of Mattel), whose own daughter was called Barbara. Barbie was introduced to the world at the American Toy Fair in New York City. The doll was intended to be a teenage fashion doll. There has been some controversy over Barbie's figure when it realized that if Barbie was a real person her measurements would be an impossible 36-18-38.

Then after being in Amman for several weeks, I found out there’s another ‘Barbie’ sold here…it is Fulla…a famous branded doll look like barbie’s cousin…….


So who’s fulla????

Fulla in muslim outfits.... educate the reality of life.....


Fulla is the name of an 11 1/2 inch Barbie-like fashion doll marketed to children of Islamic and Middle-eastern countries as an alternative to Barbie. The concept of her evolved around 1999, and she hit stores in late 2003. Fulla was created by a Syrian manufacturer from Damascus, and a toy company called NewBoy Toys . Fulla is also sold in Chine, Brazil, North Africa and Egypt while few are sold in America. Although there had been many other dolls in the past that were created with a hijab, such as Razanne and Moroccan Barbie, none of them had ever been as popular as Fulla. Fulla is a role-model to some Muslim people, displaying how most Muslim people, particularly in Saudi Arabia, would prefer their daughters to dress and behave.

Now, when mimi wants a new doll/stationery set/bag/shoes/cap/colouring book/pencil colour set/ dvd movie , she’s a little confuse….which to buy..Barbie or Fulla brand… so, she ends up having a collection of both brands. Like Barbie, the original Fulla is also very costly…. So, watch out for Fulah, Fullah ( see the spelling !! )sold in the store and the price is just a little bit lower than the real FULLA.

During Christmas 06 Sale... see that fulah...JD15 = RM75.... it's a bargain coz it's not Fulla, it is fulah..... The dolls were sold out in a week..mimi wanted this fulah so much but I thought it looked rather scary..same height as mimi...luckily she then was a bit scared of those fulahs...

For me , a combination of FULLA and BARBIE are the inspirations of being good /sophisticated/pious/well-behave individuals for the little ones…..

Which one would you prefer…FULLA or BARBIE ???????????