On 25 July, the topic “Gansu Museum responds as the malatang stuffies go viral” (#甘肃博物馆回应麻辣烫玩偶火了#) reached number 10 on the Hot Search list on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, with 16.29 million views. The viral stuffies are often compared to the British viral sensation Jellycat soft toys, as an accompanying hashtag jokes “Gansu’ers have their own Jellycat.”
The stuffies from the Gansu Provincial Museum (also called the Gansu Museum) are modelled after the once-viral Tianshui malatang, or spicy hot pot, as the English name of the toy suggests. Ingredients such as broccoli, shitake mushrooms, rice cakes and fishcakes have been carefully recreated, with added smiles on their anthropomorphic faces. Interestingly, the stuffies are sold performatively at the counter where members of the museum staff “cook” the skewered food in a plushie wok. This manner of sales strongly resembles how Jellycat serves customers at their themed pop-ups such as the most recent fish and chips-themed experience at Selfridges in London.
The Gansu Museum is known for its creative plushies and first went viral in 2022 for its stuffed version of the Flying Horse of Gansu. In late May, Pizza Hut caused a controversy for the similarities between its co-branded, hand-shaped stuffie with Wong Lo Kat and Gansu Museum’s plushie based on a statue of Guanyin’s (the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in Chinese Buddhism) hand. It is therefore interesting that the latest malatang plushies did not cause noticeable calls of plagiarism, despite the huge popularity of Jellycat in China.
Museum merch, or cultural creative (文创) items, have been all the rage in China recently. “Day trip to the museum” is pitched as the successor to the “20 minutes in the park” lifestyle trend for recharging during weekends and short holidays. Buying creative merch such as plushies and fridge magnets is one of the main attractions of these visits. Since Tianshui went viral, the Provincial Museum has been supporting the Gansu city, as well as bringing viral traffic to the museum. The latest malatang plushies can also be seen as an extension of that.
