Being original is a lonely job

The shop was quite impressive. Its big, black wall was decorated with different mobile decorative dolls on it. Key word: "different." Literally. Every doll was unique with nrepeats and no similarities!

My colleague, He Jianwei, dedicated this week's Trends page to talking about different dolls in the creative market, but here, they are smaller. The dolls stand about 5cm high and can be caried anywhere you go. One doll slips easily into your pocket like a mobile phone.

The designs are just unbelievable. There's a frog who pretends to be a pirate, apparently from the Caribbean, a wide-eyed rabbit who livs on people's blood, but maybe she's just lonely, and a cow whose nose can smile. Some of the designs, I couldn't even recognize, but each was strange and unique. "Every one is hand made," Cao Jin, the shop owner, said on the phone, "They are all made from colorful pieces of cloth, so the idea was to make something about them stand out in the market. "

Turning my head, I saw a black wall of different strange animals. There aren't that many hand-made products in this fast-paced world, so these ones seemed a little lonely. Beneaththeir colorful appearance, they have heavy hearts. I think that's the message Cao hopes we take away.

Where: B13, F/5, Soshow, No 40, Chongwenmen Wai Dajie, Chongwen
Price: 13-15 yuan each

A puzzling image

The shop Xiang Yin Jiu Yin's funny name means, "print as you wish"-see how loyal it is to the customers? It first opened on Taobao, but as the business grew, it eventually became a real shop.

The way it works is, you give your photo to the shop owner, and within several minutes, he will print it onto a special paper, which is then cut into 1,000 pieces. When you get home, you can break the pieces up and put them all in a box. It's a DIY jigsaw puzzle! Of course, if you don't want to be embarrassed when you fail to put it together, you can choose something easier like 500 pieces. For some puzzle-long friends, I think even 5,000 pieces aren't enough! Give one to your friends as a gift to test how familiar they are with you. Hopefully they don't stick your nose where your mouth goes to make fun of you.

Where: No 31, F/7, Soshow, No 40, Chongwenmen Wai Dajie, Chongwen
Price: 150-300 yuan

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