Life, marriage, love dolls and the emotional stories behind them

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The love doll is valued as a work of art.

Love dolls are bought not only by the general public, but also by many collectors and doll lovers around the world. They buy clothes, accessories and jewelry online to dress up their dolls; others consider their dolls as family and take them with them on shopping trips, car rides and even subway rides. There are two people whose stories are well known in the doll world, who each have over 200,000 followers on social media and both regularly share their interesting lives with their dolls on Twitter.

Li Dust (a pseudonym) is over 60 years old and is from Huishui, Guizhou. He is locally famous for his love dolls and also in the doll community, where he is affectionately called “Uncle Li”, and his many photos of dolls and his life experiences have generated a great response.

In May 2014, Uncle Li ordered his first love doll on the Internet and named it “Little Snow”. The next day, he asked his son to take Little Snow to a nearby tourist attraction for a photo shoot, which attracted numerous passersby.

Although it was just a factory-made doll, it had a deeper meaning to Uncle Li than its physical features. Its presence brought a second spring to Uncle Li’s life when he retired.

Before love dolls, Uncle Li had a failed marriage, as his wife was a gambler and he divorced her after a long time. Now he has a new man to marry and credits the doll with bringing them together. Together with his son and wife, he now runs the business of love dolls and accessories and earns well.

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Song Bo, the other protagonist in the story, was nearly robbed of his life hopes by a medical diagnosis. An intracranial arachnoid cyst, a complicated-sounding disease that almost makes him count the days, accidentally brings him in contact with Real Doll, which seems to be the best option for him in his limited days.

On his Weibo account, he often shares his daily life with the doll, and with around 250,000 followers, he often roams the streets of Tianjin with the doll, visiting shopping malls, riding the subway and watching movies.

There are many who are touched by Song Bo’s warm and caring attitude toward life. Most people in this group use Real Doll as a kind of support by telling Real Doll their feelings. But there are many who cannot identify with such things: “I don’t care what people think of me, I just want to be happy,” Song Bo says.

Because of his illness, he is afraid to commit to people, and marriage and children seem even more out of reach. Faced with the prospect of collapsing at any moment, all he wants to do is enjoy the time he has left, and what he has now is exactly what will make his life enjoyable. Now it is 2021 and their social accounts seem unchanged, Uncle Li’s business is quietly growing with a stable income, and Song Bo is said to have married and had children, while others say he has left them, but this is not known. What is important is that their story with Real Doll is still circulating in Wa circles.