Life Story of a Lego Lover: Conquest

Picking up from where I left off in the other post, I was on top of the bricks. From seafaring pirates to heroic firefighters to ghoulish ghost, I had it all. Every opportunity that I encountered, I would want to have it. An empire was within my grasp. Of course, all of these required the help of parental support. Nonetheless, my conquest of LEGO sets were expanding.

Like all famous conquerors in history, the thirst for lands and resources would never be quenched. If so, the British would not have sailed all the way to Malaysia and left its quaint lifestyle here nor would the Vietnamese be able to borrow culinary ideas from the French such as the extensive usage for a baguette. Indeed, my thirst was similar to all these conquerors.

Unlike all these conquerors, my quest for dominion did no include any treaties or bonds of loyalty. In other words, I would yearn for toys with interlocking bricks. As long as the toys have interlocking bricks that I could build a tower with, I would want it. I supposed back then, the concept of brand was not familiar to me. In my eyes, all toys were the same and the labels were just different colorful words that I would completely ignore.

Thus, my possessions included LEGO-ish toys from A&W, a knock off brand that a factory somewhere managed to produce, another knock off which I got hold of at the night market and among many more. It never occurred to me that all these bricks were different but I did notice the vast difference in price. During days of privation (that is, me with limited pocket money), I would opt for the cheaper products but most of the time, my parents surprised me with the real deal.

It was not long after that I realized certain bricks did not fit well together. I was perplexed of course. How was it that some bricks fit perfectly together while others would fall apart immediately the moment I turned it upside down? A mystery to which I solved when I noticed the tiny LEGO words on each legitimate LEGO bricks and minifigures.

As I scratched my head to this findings, I began to wonder why some other bricks were not branded. This was when I first understood copyrights. My eyes opened up to all the things around my house and school. Certain things might look the same but they might not necessary derive from the same source. Soon enough, the dark magic of materialism and branding had overthrown my innocent/naive mind and I unconsciously fell under their influence, following their rules and regulation.

Just like that, I was conquered. While I eventually realized this colonization of my perception of the world, it had integrated itself into me. Similar to all the colonized countries of the world, we want independence and governance of our country or culture. Yet, we cannot deny the influence the past has on our lifestyle. Sometimes, we are not even aware of it and perceive things as the way it has always been.

Regardless, my love for Lego was a relationship I dare not break. One must know that all relationships have its ups and downs and mine was no exceptional. My next life story would feature the love/hate relationship I had experience with my favorite toy brand.

Life Story of a LEGO Lover: New Found Interest

Once upon a brick ago, there lived a seemingly innocent boy in a small town built on Southeast Asia's largest island. This town was conquered by ethnically similar townsfolk with a knack for not minding their own business. Such was the lifestyle when the only excitement residents could enjoy was the annual holiday sales.

As for this little boy, his surrounding was filled with such like-minded people as well. He would have joined their cult if it wasn't for the superhero that saved him. That superhero was LEGO. More accurately, it was DUPLO, a subdivision of LEGO catered towards kids below 5 years old. Kids have the habit of swallowing anything that they can put into their mouth, especially something as colourful as LEGO bricks. Thus, DUPLO was created as temporary replacement until kids move pass their Oral Stage.

Coming back to the little boy, for as young as he could remember, he always had these blocks called DUPLO. Back then, he didn't really know the name. All he knew was that he had this interlocking blocks along with a few animal characters which he could place on top of the blocks. He was happy with such a simple toy design. Eventually, DUPLO was switched to LEGO, the one with the smaller bricks but the fun was still there nonetheless. In his mind, he was building a plastic empire with his little animal friends. In his parents' mind, it was something they could occupy him while they were busying gossiping about other people's life.

In the next coming months, the boy was so fascinated with these bricks that a little green monster called Greed was growing inside him. He wanted more. He wanted to expand his empire and there weren't enough resources. Unfortunately, the complexity of these interlocking bricks in the small town was too much for the minds of the locals to bear. Hence, it was slightly impossible for the boy to find these goodies in the town. He relied on his caretaker - his father - to savage these rare plastic goodies.

Of course, the father had to travel to this foreign land to find these plastic treasures. Sometimes he would come home with a handful of these plastic bricks and sometimes he would come home empty handed. Initially, the Greed inside the boy was in its infancy. So, the empty handedness didn't really bother him. However, as the collection piled up, the Greed transformed into a tiny gremlin, fed by constant wanting and needing.The boy would find himself shouting, sulking and crying for in his mind, he had the image of an uncaring father. It was one of those obnoxious moments which no rational adults wanted to recall.

While the introduction of DUPLO/LEGO brought creativity and imagination to this little boy, it inadvertently set him on a path to a world of materialism and avarice. Nonetheless, the good virtue of playing these interlocking bricks would eventually develop in this boy but whether he was faithful to the same interlocking bricks is another story for another post.