Taiwan's Mascots: From Datong Baby Gifts to Global Local Characters

30-Second Overview: The evolution of Taiwanese mascots is not just about changing from serious to cute. The Datong Baby in 1969 and the four professional baseball team mascots in the first year of pro ball made corporations and teams into characters that could accompany people; after 2013, Oh Bear, Xiongzan, Fish Head Boy, and Caiqi Duck connected tourism, urban governance, sports, and local cuisine. The real test is whether these characters can leave their stands and enter people's lives—that is, moving from "representing whom" to "completing what task for whom."^{1 2 3 4}

In 1969, Datong Company launched the Datong Baby. On December 3, 2013, Oh Bear from the Ministry of Transportation and Tourism Agency was put online as a sticker. In 2024, the Tainan City Government used Caiqi Duck to link 59 public retail markets. These three years and three settings map out the trajectory of Taiwanese mascots: from corporate gifts and government propaganda to cultural characters that can guide localities, greet transportation systems, or explain institutional identities. ^{1 2 3}

The history of mascots is also a history of "how abstract institutions become human language." Companies, tourism agencies, city governments, MRT companies, schools, soccer teams, and markets originally spoke through systems, logos, and official documents. The characters transformed these institutions into objects with names, actions, who could be photographed and remembered. This translation is not always successful, but it provides an accessible entry point.^{1 2 5 6}

Official Mascots of Tainan City Market: Night Fox Duck on the left, Caiqi Duck on the right. Photo: Ye Min-hsuan / Tainan City Government News and International Relations Office, used with permission from the Tainan City Government Website Open Information Announcement, source must be cited as "Tainan City Government."⁵

Starting with a Real Bear

The Taiwanese Black Bear is an endemic subspecies of Asiatic black bear in Taiwan and is listed as an endangered wild animal in English materials from Yushan National Park. The V-shaped markings on its chest are easily recognizable, leading it to be both a conservation target and a design vocabulary: designers can borrow the black body, round ears, and V-chest to quickly evoke "Taiwan" for audiences.⁷

Data from Yushan National Park indicates that the Taiwanese Black Bear has a yellow-white V or crescent-shaped chest marking. The official list of protected wild animals also includes the Taiwanese Black Bear as a terrestrial protected species. These biological characteristics give the black bear high visual recognizability, but "easy to draw" and "having clearly stated conservation status" are two different things.^{7 8}

There is an easily overlooked distance here. The real bear faces habitat, human-wildlife conflict, and poaching risks. The bear in a mascot confronts recognizability, licensing, event attendance, and social interaction. Turning a real animal into a character brings familiarity but can also flatten conservation issues into a cute symbol. When seeing the black bear motif, it is best to recall its biological identity, not just treat it as a design template.^{7 8}

📝 Curator's Note: A real bear does not need to manage a persona every day; a mascot must rely on a persona to make people want to look at it again. What is even harder is that the original reality cannot disappear after it has been seen.

1969: Datong Baby Turns Corporation into Human Form

The key to the Datong Baby is not the easily oversimplified ranking of "Taiwan's earliest," but rather that it established corporate identity as an object with a body, posture, and collectible quality very early on. The first generation, appearing in 1969, wore a helmet, held a football, and featured the Datong brand mark. It entered homes as a gift, meaning the brand was not just confined to appliance casings.^{1 9}

Official documents from Datong Company state that starting in the 58th year of the Republic (1969), customers who purchased over ten thousand dollars worth of Datong appliances could receive a Datong Baby as a gift. The red helmet, football, and plastic material specifically embodied the teamwork, tenacity, and service spirit that Datong was striving to convey at the time.¹

As the Datong Baby entered homes, the psychological distance between the brand and the consumer changed. Televisions, refrigerators, or rice cookers were functional appliances in the living room; the Datong Baby was an emotional object that could be touched, displayed, and kept. Corporate identity thus transformed from "seeing a logo" to "having one in the house."¹

The numbers on the Datong Baby's chest, the money hole on its head, its feet, and the football it held were also given official corporate meanings: the number on the chest represented Datong's founding year; the money hole on the head related to the spirit of frugality; the feet symbolized being down-to-earth; and the football corresponded to the imagination of serving customers without hardship. These explanations may not equal the actual feelings of every consumer, but they provide evidence of how the corporation wrote a backstory for the character.¹

This approach was later adopted by many corporations and public institutions: giving abstract companies, cities, or events a character that could greet visitors at the door, appear on stickers, and be held by children. As such, mascots have two time scales—short-term focus for events and long-term accumulation of familiarity.^{1 9}

📝 Curator's Note: The earliest competition among corporate mascots was not about who was cuter, but who could first occupy a small space in the living room.

1990: Pro Baseball Year One Turns Teams into Totems

On March 17, 1990, when professional baseball began its first season, the four founding teams—Brothers Elephant (Xiang), San Shang Tiger (Hu), Uni Lion (Shi), and Wei-Chuan Dragon (Long)—all used animal names, directly tying team identity to a specific animal.⁴

Sports mascots are distinctly different from corporate gifts. The Datong Baby represented corporate credibility and durability; the professional baseball teams' mascots had to carry the emotional highs and lows of fans, home attendance, and community belonging every week. Elephants, tigers, lions, and dragons were first symbols on team jerseys, later evolving into puppets that moved at the stadium sidelines, driving cheers.⁴

The four animal types also became carriers of generational memories for fans. They not only generated atmosphere in the stands but also served as core carriers of merchandise, fan-specific cheering items, and shared memory across generations. A team's victory or defeat is temporary, but the sense of belonging ignited by the character image in the stands can accompany fans through decades.⁴

📝 Curator's Note: Sports mascots do not sell appliances or scenery; they sell the sense of "we are on the same team" that enters the stadium every week.

2013–2017: Black Bear Leaves Brand to Become a City Character

Oh Bear’s setting is similar to an exercise in translating public sector language into character language. The official page of the Ministry of Transportation and Tourism Agency described it as the "Super Mission Leader," listing its history, such as being put online on December 3, 2013, and taking office on June 3, 2014. The white V-neck, orange cape, and tourism agency lettering linked the Taiwanese black bear prototype to a tourism mission.²

Oh Bear's character profile also included a birthday, job description, personality, costume, and daily activities. This information seems lighthearted but is actually transforming the "Tourism Agency" administrative body into a character that speaks in the first person. When official content shifts from policy terminology to the tone of "where I am today," readers are receiving not just an agency name, but a guide with an itinerary.²

Xiongzan's path was closer to urban events. Official records from the Taipei City Government show that Xiongzan served as an ambassador during the 2017 Taipei World Games and continued to accumulate fans and merchandise demand after the event. On September 20, 2017, the Taipei City Government officially invited Xiongzan to be a municipal mascot.³

_Xiongzan with visitors at Yangmingshan National Park in January 2016, during the 2017 Taipei World Games. Photo: Chi-Hung Lin / Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.⁶

The day after the games concluded, Xiongzan went to a job service station to submit a resume, posing a sharp question to all one-off large events: After the closing ceremony disperses and the excitement fades, how does the character find sustainable existence in city life? The municipality later awarded "TPE" gold and arranged a dedicated office, transforming Xiongzan from an event character into a public image for municipal and tourism activities.³

Why Does the Black Bear Keep Appearing?

The reason the black bear repeatedly became a preferred design choice for public sectors is due to three distinct visual efficiencies: its strong association with endemic species in Taiwan, the instantly recognizable V-chest marking, and the easy transformation of its round face and sturdy build into plush toys, inflatable devices, and communication stickers. The first two points are supported by the black bear's biological characteristics and Oh Bear's design; the last point is a design analysis that should not be misrepresented as official statistics.^{2 7}

However, the safety mindset of "choosing the black bear was correct" quickly led to a crisis of saturation in recognizability. Dozens of unrelated black bear characters have sequentially appeared across public and private sectors—from the Tourism Agency's "Oh Bear," Taipei City's "Xiongzan," Kaohsiung City's "Kaohsiung Bear," Wihang's "Wei Bear," to Ningxia Night Market's "Ningxia Bear." Lin Cheng-yi humorously noted that Kaohsiung alone had three, and no one knew how to differentiate between "Gaogao Bear" and "Kaohsiung Bear."¹⁰

Service designer Lin Cheng-yi analyzed that when every bear looks like the general term "Taiwanese Black Bear," the character loses its memory as an independent brand and easily becomes a tool for temporary events. Only when the character is placed into specific urban tasks and long-term daily operations can it break out from being "just another black bear."¹⁰

📝 Curator's Note: The prototype can only make people recognize "what type," but the character makes people remember "which one." When every bear looks like the general term "Taiwanese Black Bear," they lose uniqueness and become event props.

How Transportation Systems Put Mascots on the Road

The Kaohsiung MRT mascot moved beyond static displays in traditional tourism brochures, directly onto light rail platforms and traffic intersections. In a 2015 official press release from Kaohsiung MRT, HAPPI and U!FU were seen soliciting votes in transportation settings during the city's first mascot competition. The mascots thus became on-site media for interaction between the transportation system and citizens.¹³

_Kaohsiung MRT Mascots Happy (Yellow) and U!FU (Blue) in a Kaohsiung City Mascot PK battle. Photo: Tze Chiang Hao, CC BY-SA 4.0.¹⁴

The current character areas of Kaohsiung MRT also list the Yongfu family, including Bear Dad Yongfu, Bear Mom Baozhu, Bear Sister Pingping, Bear Brother Anan, and Hamster Happy. The same area preserves "Kaohsiung Girl" and subsequent character series. This shows that transportation characters are not one-off decorations but can transform with operating themes, audiences, and media.⁵

This case reminds us that the function of a mascot is not necessarily to "sell the city." It can also reduce the sense of distance from transportation facilities, giving stations, light rail, and public events a face that can be photographed, voted on, and remembered. The character has not replaced transport information, but it has added an emotional entry point to the transportation system.^{5 13}

The transportation system's characters also have a boundary that cannot be crossed: cuteness cannot replace accuracy. Timetables, fares, transfers, and safety information still require clear text and signage. The best place for a character is where it encourages people to stop and read the rules, not where decoration obscures the rules. This is the key difference between public service characters and purely commercial ones.⁵

A County, an Ibis, and a Pun

The Miaoli County Government used the protected animal, the Ibis (Maolih), as the prototype for Maoli Miao, giving it an approachable image with round eyes, a round body, whiskers, and bright yellow coloring. Official news also recorded that Maoli Miao interacted with local residents during elections to seek support. This grassroots interaction allowed Maoli Miao to transcend the framework of official promotional items and become part of the passionate participation and endorsement of all county residents.¹⁵

_Maoli Miao, Miaoli County Mascot, located in the lobby of THSR Miaoli Station. Photo: Foxy1219, CC BY-SA 4.0.¹⁶

The design of Maoli Miao layered three meanings: the phonetic association with the old name "Miaoli," the local ecology of the Ibis, and public spaces like the high-speed rail station that travelers pass through. Unlike Xiongzan, it is not based on large international events. It is more like a local guide who ties the county name, animal, and travel routes together.^{15 16}

The pun in Maoli Miao's naming contains specific local considerations: the pronunciation of the old Miaoli name transformed into a friendly greeting, while the Ibis image links to the local ecological environment, finding an intersection point between tourism marketing and biological conservation on one character.¹⁵

School Mascots: Turning School Logos into Characters

Tiger Duck from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) was created by Benjamin Tora and Rossie Duck. The school explained that the name comes from the wrench and screw in the NTUST logo, representing the spirit of practical craftsmanship. Tiger Duck is also expected to increase school recognition and bridge the distance between the school and the public.¹⁷

_Image of the NTUST School Mascot Tiger Duck. Photo: Taiming2003, CC BY-SA 4.0.¹⁸

The mission of a school character is not entirely the same as that of an urban character. It does not have to represent all of Taiwan, nor does it need to turn every visitor into a tourist. First, it must provide students, alumni, and faculty with a shared image that can speak, be photographed, and participate in activities beyond the school logo. Turning the wrench and screw into a tiger and a duck is an example of translating institutional language into daily campus life.¹⁷

Tiger Duck also carries the humor of campus life: the school once released fun stickers titled "We are on Jilin Road," allowing the mascot to not only build school identity but also provide common topics for daily campus geography and social interaction.¹⁷

Characters Don't Just Exist in Plush Toys

Mascots also leave costumes, entering school staircases, station lobbies, mall windows, and neighborhood walls. The 3D painted staircase of Jianzhong Elementary School in Miaoli, completed by Wei Rong-hsin and Hsiao Zhang, features the Ibis, Shangxing Station, Longteng Broken Bridge, and wooden Buddha. It is not a single official mascot figure, but it demonstrates how local characters and landmark symbols enter public space, allowing people to walk through a piece of local history.¹¹

_3D painted staircase of Jianzhong Elementary School in Miaoli, featuring the Ibis, Shangxing Station, Longteng Broken Bridge, and wooden Buddha. Photo: Paddy.hsiao, CC BY 4.0. This is an example of local public art and character symbols, not to be mistaken for a school mascot.¹¹

Therefore, judging whether a local character is successful cannot only ask if it has a plush toy. It must also ask if it can become a route, a photo spot, a campus entrance, or a visual code that makes people willing to stop and understand the locality. Characters in public spaces may not have complete backstories, but they must be related to an experience of a place that can be walked through.¹¹

Beyond Team Logos: TYMON

TYMON is the mascot for all levels of Chinese Taipei national soccer teams. Compared to school or transportation system characters, the national team mascot deals with fan mobilization, match-day atmosphere, and emotional cohesion for the delegation. It does not need to explain all the rules of soccer, but it must provide an entry point that is more expressive than a team logo in player appearances, fan photos, and merchandise.¹²

When fans wave towels or wear jerseys in the stands, the mascot transforms the abstract national team identity into something tangible that can be photographed and high-fived. In the sports arena, the character embodies passion and belonging.¹²

Facing the competitive tension of international events, dedicated mascots also establish a recognizable marker for Taiwanese soccer. Compared to a mere association logo, the expressive TYMON is easier to circulate in social media broadcasts, on-site cheering, and souvenirs, building a daily emotional bridge for grassroots promotion and fan cohesion.¹²

The Watershed of Character IP: From Motif to Daily Life

Corporate mascots best illustrate this watershed. The World reported that Open had a character operation marketing team during its prime, creating themed stores, film collaborations, band partnerships, limited-edition cars, and theme parks, achieving a commercial peak described as generating 1 billion NTD in revenue for 7-Eleven in 2014. The key implication behind the 1 billion NTD was that the company truly viewed the character as an intangible asset requiring long-term scheduling, product development, and regular maintenance.¹⁹

The same report placed the birth of the Welfare Bear from PXMart Supermarket in 2014, noting that it accumulated sales through exchange gifts, fresh food packaging, and strategic alliance products. The report quoted operators saying that sales involving repackaging fruit "also reached 1 billion." This metric includes various products and sales activities and cannot be directly equated to pure licensing fees, nor should it be compared to the attendance income of public sector mascots.¹⁹

The true threshold for corporate IP is whether it can maintain its character personality across different settings. The themed store is a space; the limited-edition product is an object; film and band collaborations are content; the special car is a mobile medium. If these arrangements only leave behind a logo, the character reverts to being just a trademark. Only when every medium makes readers recognize "this is the same character doing different things" does the IP come alive.¹⁹

The collaboration between Taiwan Post and Yimei put the postal mascot Papo Pigeon into packaging, turning the post office from a service institution into a collectible, exchangeable, and giftable daily object. The cultural significance of this cooperation lies beyond "mail carriers, mailboxes, and stamps," adding an expressive character entry point.²⁰

When Cuteness Isn't Enough: Fish Head Boy and Caiqi Duck

The official setting for Fish Head Boy from the Tainan Tourism Bureau is straightforward: it is a mackerel born in the shallow ponds of Tainan, with the English name Sababoy, whose mission is to introduce Tainan to the world. Choosing "fish head" over the whole fish also transforms the mackerel from food on the dining table into a tourism ambassador who can travel and introduce cities.²¹

The official page deliberately states that Fish Head Boy will reveal its cross-sectioned head, distancing itself from mascots that only pursue cuteness. This design is similar to the humor of local Taiwanese cuisine: first making you feel round, cute, and friendly, then reminding you with a slightly bizarre backside that this fish has its own origin. This is an editorial analysis of official character materials, not a direct quote from the designer's humor.²¹

The Tainan City Government also issued a press release stating that Fish Head Boy first appeared at the Qixu Seafood Festival in 2018, and subsequently appeared in Japan for cultural exchange, tourism promotion, stadiums, and travel expos. In 2023, the city government held a themed exhibition called "Fish Head Boy's Playground." These settings made Fish Head Boy not just an ingredient image, but a tourism ambassador who can introduce localities.²²

Compared to tourism ambassadors focused on promoting landmarks, Caiqi Duck chose to take root in daily wet markets. In 2024, the Tainan City Government used the market mascot "Caiqi Duck" to drive the "Market Boy, Goods Bag Can't Hold You Collection Duck" event. Citizens could visit 59 public retail markets, integrating the daily shopping routine of Taiwan Traditional Markets and Market Culture, by scanning codes, checking in, and exchanging merchandise to re-enter the market.³

The curatorial depth of Caiqi Duck lies in turning the mascot into an actual market navigation interface: it tells people where to shop and how to explore old markets, transforming a normal grocery run into a ritualistic collection experience. The character's "local flavor" thus has observable actions, not just a slogan.³

📝 Curator's Note: Fish Head Boy turns ingredients into characters; Caiqi Duck turns the market into a mission; when local feeling truly lands, the mascot tells you where to go next.

When Cuteness Meets Reality: Copyright Bottom Line and Ugly-Cute Counterattack

The vitality of mascots often comes from their "reality." In May 2024, the main visual for the immersive mystery game at the National Taiwan Literature Museum, "A Long," was accused of plagiarism from a Chinese painter. The museum first denied plagiarism, but the next day admitted that the original evidence provided by the commissioned manufacturer was forged, publicly apologized, and delisted all copies. This incident sounded an alarm bell for cultural creation governance in public sectors: if a mascot degenerates into a disposable product under labor contracts, when an infringement storm breaks out, what is consumed is the social trust accumulated by the entire public institution over many years.²³

Beyond the pursuit of exquisite cuteness, local spaces in Taiwan have also given rise to "ugly-cute" figures known for their bizarre and contrasting features. The most famous example is the "Mackerel Kid" from Nanmen, Tainan, whose dark eyes and peculiar smile were once described as nightmare landmarks, even appearing on the American HBO talk show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, sparking international discussion. These unrefined local creations unexpectedly became alternative landscapes transmitted across international social media.²⁴

In addition to unique sights in domestic cities, landmarks like "Pearl Baby," "Chengqian Fresh Oyster," and "Bikini Clownfish" in Penghu often came with a sense of plastic quality and aesthetic debate upon their debut, yet they attracted check-in frenzies on social media through their bizarre visuals, collectively painting Taiwan's unique "ugly-cute culture" and Taiwan Meme Culture ecosystem alongside the cross-section humor of Fish Head Boy. This unconventional self-deprecation and contrast reflects grassroots attempts by local creators to break away from the delicate Japanese framework.^{24 25}

Public Budgets Also Grade Mascots

When corporate characters don't sell well, corporations can change strategies. When public sector characters use public funds, there is an extra layer of questions. In 2018, Xiongzan sparked debate among legislators over the expenditure of 1.13 million NTD for trademark and design changes. This controversy was not just about whether a bear looked good, but also about whether the public institution clearly explained: why it changed, what problem the change solved, and how to evaluate the effectiveness after the change.²⁶

Therefore, evaluating a public sector mascot cannot only look at licensing fees or single appearance fees. At least three aspects must be considered simultaneously: whether the character improves information delivery, whether it makes citizens more willing to participate in urban activities, and whether the design and maintenance costs can be publicly explained. Revenue figures can provide clues, but they cannot represent cultural value alone. These three aspects are an analytical framework proposed in this article, not official statistics.^{3 26}

When assessing the operational performance of corporate IP, outsiders also need to look beyond surface numbers for rational deconstruction. The scale of revenue, product sales, exchange thresholds, and licensing collaborations mentioned in reports each answer different dimensions of business propositions. Adding them all together does not automatically yield "character success." The commercial benefits, public benefits, cultural memory, and conservation communication of a character should be recorded separately before explaining how they influence each other.^{7 19 20}

Rewriting "Cuteness" into a Methodology

Reviewing the evolution of Taiwanese mascots over half a century, the common experience is transforming rigid systems into approachable human language: the Datong Baby gave corporations physical form; Oh Bear gave tourism policy a conversational tone; and Kaohsiung MRT brought puppets onto commuting scenes. In different settings, each mascot has its own mission: Maoli Miao puts Ibis conservation and county name into the station; Tiger Duck turns the school logo into a campus partner; TYMON turns the national team into a tangible entity fans can high-five; Fish Head Boy promotes local ingredients on the tourism stage; and Caiqi Duck transforms market tours into urban exploration with a mission.^{1 2 3 5 13 15 17 12 21}

This path also leaves several practical questions. Is the character prototype overly concentrated on the black bear? Are licensing income, product sales, and public benefits mixed into a single table? Are the image files, photographic works, and derivative products of official characters clearly marked with boundaries? If these questions have no answers, even a cute character may only remain as a temporary set piece.^{7 19 26}

Image rights, in particular, cannot be overlooked by the word "official." The images retained here from Wikimedia Commons are marked with CC BY, CC BY-SA, or government open data usage terms. The licensing of photos does not mean that the character's trademark, official artwork, or derivative products can be used arbitrarily. An article can display a character, but when submitting or reproducing it, one must check each photographer, license term, trademark, and government open data announcement individually.^{5 6 14 16 18 11 12}

For readers, the next time they encounter a mascot on the street, they can ask one more question: who does it represent, and what task is it completing? If the answer leads back to a market, a food, a station, a school, a game, or a memory of conservation, the character has a chance to live. Only by being rooted in life can a mascot shed its shell as an event prop and truly become a vivid way for Taiwan to tell its story to the world.^{3 5 7}

Further Reading

• Taiwan Meme Culture — How puns, ugly-cute, and contrast circulate on social media
• PXMart Supermarket Welfare Bear — The daily operation of the Welfare Bear and corporate IP
• Taiwan Traditional Markets and Market Culture — Markets, food, and urban life connected by Caiqi Duck and Night Fox Duck
• Taiwanese Black Bear — The endemic biological prototype and real habitat behind the cultural totem

References