‘America was futuristic once. Now all the crazy things are from Asia’: why the British are going wild for kawaii culture
From bubble tea and corn dogs to K-pop and plushies, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese brands have captured the pocket-money market
A yla and Edie, both aged 12, are hanging out in Westfield Stratford City, a shopping centre next to London’s former Olympic Park, on a Saturday afternoon. They first go to T4, a Taiwanese outlet that sells bubble tea – a sweet, multicoloured cold drink with chewy, or exploding, tapioca balls at the bottom. Ayla went for a rose tea; Edie for strawberry flavour. They cost £6 each. “It is quite expensive,” says Ayla, “but I earn money from doing chores like unloading the dishwasher, hanging up the laundry.”
They head a few metres down the centre to Kenji, a gift, homeware, snack and stationery shop that describes itself as an “east Asian-influenced brand”. As a birthday present for a friend, Ayla buys a £10 “sushi cat” plushie – a squidgy stuffed animal with a pillow strapped to its back as if it were a bed of rice topped with tuna. “My friend brings in sushi to school every day. She’s really into it,” Ayla says.
Finally, they head to Pop Mart, a Chinese shop, where I meet them. The shelves are lined with hundreds of 8-10cm figurines, intricate and brightly painted £13.50 plastic statues that the company describes as “art toys”. Some are based on well-known characters, such as Harry Potter or Teletubbies, but most are designed specifically for Pop Mart and share a distinctively east Asian aesthetic, with exaggeratedly large eyes and disproportionately large heads.
