The Chinese also have their own straw building set (4M manufacturer). Of course, there are many version of these sets by many brands from China, but this is the one we had a personal expirience with.
Building straws are a popular and unusual type of building set. These sets include long, hollow flexible tubes that connect to each other at their ends. Since the tubes themselves have no special connecting devices, the set also includes special connecting parts. These parts are very small hard and rigid, and they have long pins that you can insert into the straws. The number and the positions of these pins can vary, so different connectors hold the straws’ ends at different angles. Because the tubes are flexible, this simple principle allows you to assemble countless shapes and crafts.
These sets are very unusual because they allow you to create any geometrical form you want and use the bent lines. The final craft will always be hollow, lightweight, and almost symbolic. However, you will still recognize these shapes, and they look more detailed and solid if they have more straws. Also, the straws are soft, so you can shorten them with a pair of common scissors if you need to. Sadly, there is no way to fix the straw after it was cut. Since the long straws bend more smoothly than the short straws connected in a row, the long ones are very valuable in these sets. So you have to be careful if you want to cut something.
I bought a set like this one some years ago for my 1.5 year old daughter. She watched with curiosity as the older children made crafts from Takeshi, but couldn’t make anything herself. The set has bright colored straws, it’s less elastic than Takeshiw. They are more like cocktail straws, and have large connectors that are comfortable for small fingers. The diameter of the tubes is 5 mm, length is 7.5 inches, there are 6 colors. You can cut the pieces if you need to, or use them whole. The 6-point star connector is an inch wide. There are also plastic wheels with holes, their diameter is 4 inches, so you can build a bicycle. The Chinese most likely borrowed the idea from the British; they also have such a constructor, called Connecta-Straws.