Actress Tan Kheng Hua has a Barbie collection that she has kept since the '60s

Barbie fan or not, you would have heard of the hype surrounding the Barbie movie. Barbie fans have gone all out: From showing off their pink outfits at the cinema to creating virtual Barbie versions of themselves and posting snaps of their Barbie paraphernalia.

Local actress, Tan Kheng Hua, 60, is on Team Barbie as well.

On Aug 3, Kheng Hua’s daughter, rookie actress Lim Shi-An, posted a TikTok showing her mum’s impressive Barbie doll collection.

According to Kheng Hua, she has had the collection “since the 1960s” which means she probably received them as a child.

“She says she was crazy about Barbie, so when the movie came out she went and dug out her case of Barbie stuff. It’s just so fun to look at because it’s so funny there’s a movie out and she gets to reminisce about the time she loved Barbie,” said Shi-An.

The duo proceeded to do a show-and-tell of the items from Kheng Hua’s collection, which Shi-An eagerly described as “amazing”.

They started off by introducing the least well-preserved doll, a “mouldy Barbie”.

Though the doll has clearly seen better days, Kheng Hua affectionately recalled being drawn to its appearance, which did not fit into the typical Barbie stereotype.

“I bought her because if you look at her boobs, she doesn’t have that big pointy boobs that Barbie had and her hips are quite narrow. And that really spoke to me as a little girl! She had an unusual bob haircut (too). I don’t know, I just loved it,” said Kheng Hua.

She then moved on to a “newer Barbie”, which was a present given to her by local theatre director Ivan Heng.

With a giggle, Shi-An did not forget to point out that this doll had the “pointy boobs” Kheng Hua spoke about.

“I would love to talk about how well-organised I was as a little girl,” said Kheng Hua as she referred to a section of the box that was meant for her “Barbie to sleep”, and another section that was filled with Barbie accessories.

She even had Barbie-sized crockery, which according to Shi-An, looked “Asian-themed”.

They then moved on to Barbie’s clothes with Kheng Hua recalling: “My Barbie needed to have a complete set of what I call essential clothes."

And true enough, her dolls even had a set of pyjamas and an adorable old-school plastic raincoat.

While showing off more of her cool-looking Barbie outfits, Kheng Hua continued: “I made my Barbie wear what I would wear myself."

Shi-An also commented: “Barbie has more clothes than us.”

“So how do you feel looking back on your Barbie collection?” asked Shi-An at the end of the show-and-tell.

“I always knew for sure that I would keep my Barbie collection forever,” said Kheng Hua as she made “mouldy Barbie” Francie wave bye to the camera. “Don’t be scared of her face, okay,” she added with a laugh.

Many fellow TikTokers commented on how much they loved Shi-An's video, and how happy it made them feel.

Not gonna lie, it made us wish we kept our Barbies from our childhood too. 

This story was originally published in 8Days.