Most educators believe that playing is a form of learning.

So what are more than 100 million Chinese children playing with after school? How are millions of preschool children spending their days in kindergartens and at home?

Toys have always kept children company in the course of growing up. Most of us may well remember the happy days of our childhood when we spent time with cheap, simple, curiosity-provoking toys. In fact toys have always played a major role in bringing up kids in a healthy way, both physically and mentally.

Toys also represent fundamental ideas, desires, and concerns that are central to the lives of a nation and its culture. Therefore, practical, instructive and artistic playthings are enjoyed by children and adults alike.

Recently, some toy makers have begun turning out knick-knacks that are harmful to children’s physical and mental health. It was reported in the media that in the city of Changchun of Jilin Province in Northeast China, an 80-year-old granny was badly frightened by her grandson when the child playfully attacked her with a scary toy.

The toy looked like a human skull with flaming red eyes attached to a wizard’s black cloak, and had a blood curdling shriek. For ordinary people, the greatest harm such toys may inflict is giving them a start. They might simply laugh them off as a practical joke and forget it. However they can cause disastrous consequences for the elderly or weak-minded, as shown in the story above.

According to a survey in a high school in Changchun conducted by CCTV, 80 per cent of the students interviewed knew and had experience playing with horror toys. All the boys thought terror toys were funny, interesting and exciting, while 40 per cent of the girls indicated that they liked these frightening baubles. Some girls had nightmares or even developed psychological problems after frequent exposure to horror toys.

Though technically speaking students are not supposed to play with such vile toys, they are readily available on the market. This causes anxiety for both teachers and parents in Changchun and other cities across China. Shanghai has also seen an increase in the number of toys meant to tease or play tricks on people. Examples are itching powder and fake cola which tastes increasingly spicy as you drink it. There are horror toys, porn toys, and more dangerously, imitation pistols. Loaded with ball bearings, such quasi-weapons can kill flying birds. Even experts can’t tell if they are real or fake at a glance. They are popular with both adults and children.

And what is more disturbing is a game dubbed supernatural pencil (bi xian) that claimed a girl’s life in Beijing when she and a classmate heeded the pencil’s instruction to kill her (reported on CCTV’s “Focus?on November 8).

Selecting a toy isn’t simply a matter of going to a toy store and pointing. A good toy is one which a child can play with and learn from; one in which playing and learning go hand-in-hand. Certainly, toys that merely provide children with mindless fun without positive messages are not good toys. And those that are intended to amuse oneself at the cost of others should definitely be cast away on the rubbish heap. At the very least, such things should not be passed off as toys for children.

It is only natural that children are curious and predisposed to mischief. In particular, when young schoolboys get together, chaos often results from their pranks, antics, and silly behaviour. But when such instincts are diverted to facilitate their healthy growth, it can be of great benefit. We just cannot afford to reduce ourselves to catering to their innocent curiosity by providing them with weird and ghastly toys.

The reason why these toys catch their fancy is that life for them after school is generally dry and dull with very few activities to keep them happy. To make their life more colorful and balanced, children outside class should be organized not only for study, but also for instructive and enjoyable games that are geared to their needs.

On the other hand, toy designers and manufacturers should make it their duty to infuse positive ideas and images into their works that will assist children as they grow and change. To my knowledge, we do have technical regulations governing the safety and quality of toys to prevent children from being hurt while playing. So far, however, there are no related codes or rules to set specific requirements to monitor their spiritual implications and moral message. It is an urgent task for our country to take measures and make sure the toy industry grows and flourishes alongside China’s modernization.