Lishui, April 23 (China News Network) (Hu Fengsheng) At Kunou Nursing Home in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, more than 30 elderly people are intently challenging the "Ingenious Digital Flip Board"; at Guangzhou No.2 Nursing Home, 75-year-old Wang Junfeng and his partners are sweating it out in a wooden tabletop air hockey match... These wooden toys that have captivated elderly people around the world all come from the same origin—Yunhe, Lishui, Zhejiang.
With the acceleration of China's aging process, the "silver economy" has emerged as a new blue ocean. Leveraging its industrial advantage as the "Hometown of Chinese Wooden Toys", Yunhe has innovatively proposed the "Wooden Toys for Elderly Care" model and developed age-appropriate products, with annual sales exceeding 20 million yuan, becoming a new growth point for the local silver economy and county-level industrial development.
In December 2024, elderly people experience various wooden toys in Yunhe. Photo by Wang Jinhong
Wooden Toys Open Up a "New Blue Ocean for the Silver Generation"
Since the beginning of this year, many wooden toy enterprises in Yunhe have transformed to explore new tracks, developing an integrated development model of "wooden toys + elderly health services" and extending the intelligent and interesting industrial chain of elderly care and wooden toys.
Yunhe County Elderly Educational Wooden Toys Research and Study Base is one of the spots on the "Landscape Fairy Tale Health Care" silver-haired research and study route. Recently, 20 local elderly people experienced wooden toy game projects such as "Skill Balls", "Ant Moving", and "Tabletop Air Hockey", which fully mobilized their physical coordination, hands-on ability, and logical thinking skills.
Xiang Lifang, Director of Yunhe County Veteran Cadres Service Center, introduced that wooden toy games are not only exclusive to children but also favorites of elderly friends.
Today, combining the characteristics of the wooden toy industry, Yunhe has innovatively launched wooden toy courses and become one of the 17 counties (cities, districts) in Zhejiang Province pilot areas for integrating elderly education resources. The new model of "dynamic elderly care services" is gradually being promoted. In Guangzhou, representatives from more than 100 local elderly care service institutions and elderly people from Guangzhou No.2 Nursing Home have also personally experienced the magical charm of elderly educational wooden toys.
"Wooden toys can effectively alleviate the loneliness of the elderly," said Wang Lijun, President of Guangzhou Elderly Care Service Association. He believes that such low-intensity social activities have unique value in maintaining the cognitive abilities of the elderly. In his opinion, Yunhe's wooden toys can effectively help the elderly develop their intelligence and bring beneficial social activities to them.
From Local Innovation to Global Layout
In recent years, Yunhe has also accelerated its overseas market layout, promoting elderly wooden toys to elderly activity venues such as overseas nursing homes, senior schools, and community public spaces. Up to now, the local area has developed and produced more than 200 types of wooden toy products that help improve the elderly's hand-foot coordination and slow down memory decline.
Yin Qian, President of Zhejiang Mimi Zhikang Technology Co., Ltd., revealed in an interview that the enterprise has obtained more than 30 patents and served more than 500 elderly care institutions. "In 2024, our products successfully entered markets such as Germany and Japan, and were well-received by elderly friends overseas."
"Through cooperation and exchanges with the Brain Health Research Team of Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center and the Shaoxing Alzheimer's Disease Prevention and Research Group, the company has developed more than 100 types of elderly educational wooden toy products with both entertainment and brain-building functions," said Yin Qian. They can customize the production of elderly educational wooden toys according to the needs of overseas markets—for example, elderly people in Germany like chess, so the enterprise designs and develops high-quality solid wood chess pieces; Kendama games are popular among the elderly in Japan, so the enterprise has set up a new product production line. In the first quarter of this year, the sales volume of elderly wooden toy products produced by the enterprise increased by 50% year-on-year.
"We have created the age-appropriate toy brand 'Laotong Wooden Toys', and related products have initially entered countries and regions such as South Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia," introduced Wang Wancheng, Chairman of Yunhe Jincheng Wood Industry Co., Ltd. The company is accelerating the equipment renewal project of an intelligent production line with an annual output of 10 million sets of wooden toys, and plans to launch elderly wooden toy products featuring "Eastern philosophy + minimalist design" in overseas markets to attract more overseas consumers.
It is reported that Yunhe is vigorously carrying out 9 actions including R&D and innovation, market development, brand promotion, quality improvement, enterprise cultivation, talent training, industrial chain strengthening and supplementing, factor guarantee, and digital empowerment, organically integrating the wooden toy industry with animation and cultural and creative industries, elderly health care, etc., and exploring new paths for integrated industrial development. A relevant person in charge of Yunhe County Bureau of Commerce and Industry said that currently, the county will increase support for the R&D and industrialization of core technologies for elderly products, helping more elderly wooden toy products accelerate their overseas expansion.