It’s always holiday season in Yiwu, a “fourth-tier” Chinese city where migrant workers churn out two-thirds of the world’s Christmas decorations
It’s that time of year again: Christmas decorations have been unpacked from dusty attics and basements, and are sparkling around the home to put one in the mood for the season. But these festive ornaments in all likelihood originated from a faraway place where Christmas isn’t officially celebrated, yet it’s Christmas season all year round: Yiwu city in Zhejiang province, known as the “commodities capital of the world.”
The city of 1.9 million about an hour by train south of Shanghai reportedly produces anywhere from two-thirds to 80 percent of the world’s Christmas decorations. The over 500 factories and workshops in and around the city, most of them privately run cottage industries staffed by migrant workers, churn out baubles, bushes, hats, and trees (the plastic variety) worth billions of dollars every year, according to provincial customs tallies. A substantial amount of these trinkets are sold to the US, Latin America, Europe, and Russia.
Roman Kierst is a staff writer and editor at The World of Chinese based in Beijing but much more at home in Chengdu, where his own China story first began as a high school exchange student in 2006. Likes to pick up a film camera occasionally to take pictures of (mostly) old places.
