NO CHEER AT REAL SANTA’S WORKSHOP

Chinese factory churns out decorations all year round but workers have no idea what it is all for

THERE are no elves, no snowpiles and it is thousands of miles from the North Pole, but what is really missing from the real-life Santa’s Workshop — a grimy Chinese city that produces 60pc of the world’s festive paraphernalia — is any interest in Christmas.

“I have absolutely no idea what this is,” a migrant worker named Ms Wang says, holding aloft a bauble emblazoned with a smiling reindeer that she has just made at a factory in Yiwu.

In a couple of weeks, the decoration will be hung from a Christmas tree in a western household among dozens of sparkling, glittering decorations that were probably all produced in the city in eastern China.

Ms Wang works at Dongyang Nuoya Arts & Crafts Co, one of 800 Yiwu businesses that produce decorations worth more than 1bn yuan (¤137m) each year.

The company sells baubles and trimmings that are made from a production base in a crumbling, eightstorey, multi-use industrial centre in Yiwu’s hilly suburbs.

It is a grey, silent, concrete district, where workers with sullen faces earn about 10 yuan (¤1.37) an hour.

Rubbish areas strewn with dirty Father Christmas beards and plastic reindeer are the only signs that this is China’s Christmas town.

The landscape is far removed from the thatched, snow-covered cottages commonly depicted as workshops in the fairy tales, but the sound of jingling bells as one approaches Dongyang Nouya’s factory is unmistakable.

Inside, a dozen women are fastening bells onto bright purple trimmings, while others glue images of Father Christmas, snowmen and reindeer onto white polystyrene balls, transforming them into baubles.

“Workers at the factory do not know what all the stuff they are working on is used for,” said Yang Fuyun, who owns the company.

“They just focus on production and how much they can earn. It’s the same with most of the factories in the city.”

However, a lack of seasonal cheer does not stop it from being Christmas every day in Yiwu.

The city of one million people is home to what is reputedly the world’s biggest wholesale market, which houses shops packed with endless boxes of tinsel, Father Christmas hats, sixfoot-high plastic reindeers and rows of Christmas trees.

Yiwu is a trading boom town that produces countless numbers of goods commonly found in discount stores across the world.

Christmas goods make up a large proportion of these exports, but Yiwu also benefits from rising Chinese interest in the traditionally western festival.

Communist China banned Christmas half a century ago, as religion was suppressed during the Cultural Revolution, and there is still no national holiday on December 25.

However, the commercial aspects of Christmas are booming, as almost all the glitzy malls and high streets are decked with decorations, and present-giving has become increasingly common.

The festive season is also gaining popularity due to the rise of Christianity in China, where many who have gained wealth from the country’s economic boom are searching for answers to life’s more meaningful questions.

China’s Christian population is thought to number about 100 million, and experts predict it will increase to almost 250 million people by 2030 — giving China the biggest population of Christians on Earth.

Churches in big cities are packed in the run-up to Christmas, but many of those attending are seeking to feel more ‘Christmassy’, and have little knowledge of the story of Jesus Christ.

The trend does show that Christmas is becoming part of Chinese life — particularly among city-dwellers and the middle-classes. In that respect, it is perhaps unsurprising that the workers in Yiwu, who are often migrants who have come from poor rural provinces, have little interest in Christmas.

There doesn’t appear to be much inclination locally to educate the workers on how the fruits of their labour will inject festive cheer to millions in the coming weeks.

“What’s the point in our workers knowing anything about Christmas? It means nothing,” said Cai Qinliang, the deputy head of the Christmas Gifts Association in Yiwu.

“People are not thankful for Christmas — they can make money by making other things if there was no Christmas,” he said. “It’s nothing more than a holiday anyway.”