Christmas decorations: Without the city of Yiwu, Christmas would look different

OWithout us there would be no Christmas, says Lou Aiting and smiles. The friendly, somewhat absent-looking entrepreneur stands among countless Santa hats, bells and all sorts of other knick-knacks, which she presents to the few traders who get lost here shortly before Christmas. On the ground floor of the wholesale market center, one shop is lined up next to the next, some are small and narrow like garages, others are big like tennis courts. Everything is full of Christmas decorations: forests of artificial Christmas trees, Santa Clauses, bells, Christmas tree balls.

Anyone who has ever been here will come across the goods at every Christmas market in Germany. And even if it seems out of place in the middle of a shop full of glittery ribbons, it's true here too: there used to be more tinsel.

One of the largest trading centers in the world

Allow me: Yiwu, World Christmas Capital. At times, according to China's state media, four out of five Christmas products worldwide came from the small Chinese town, an hour and a half or 250 kilometers as the crow flies southwest of Shanghai, located in lovely, gentle, forested hills. The journey from the train station takes a good 20 minutes, the streets are well maintained and well developed. It goes past a Porsche center and dozens of very modern-looking residential towers, twenty-five stories high.

The trading city is said to have almost two million inhabitants. There are thousands of products for retail in countless halls, and retailers stock up on entire containers full of goods. If you go up one floor from the Christmas stuff, you end up in a jungle full of artificial flowers.

The city has gained international fame as one of the largest trading centers in the world. Whenever correspondents want to get an impression of China's economy, Yiwu is the place to go. It is easy to reach from Shanghai by express train; the people are used to foreign journalists and tell their stories comparatively openly. Yiwu has become a kind of thermometer for the Chinese economy.

Christmas is an economic factor

The Christmas madness began in the 1990s, say the dealers in the hall. At that time, Guangdong, the area north of Hong Kong, was still the production center. But the materials came from here, and Yiwu's labor was cheaper.

First the factories were built in the city itself. But then the rents became too high, they say. Now they have migrated into the surrounding area, into the neighboring valleys. They don't know exactly how many Christmas factories there are in the area. Some say a few hundred. One says there are almost 3,000. One thing is clear: Christmas is an economic factor.

These are all small family businesses with highly automated factories. This is what Ms. Lou and the other sellers in the trading center report, many of whom introduce themselves as the owners of the factories. It is difficult to verify whether this is all true. But like Ms. Lou, they report 30, 50 or 70 employees who primarily take care of the packaging. The workers earned around 700 euros a month in the off-season.

Christmas season is in spring and summer, when shoppers from all over the world flock to the city. The workers sometimes earned twice as much. The factories come to a standstill in December and January. Starting with Chinese New Year, they satisfy the world's Christmas hunger again.