
Yiwu: The Chinese city where Christmas is made and sold - prostoalex
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141218-the-hidden-home-of-christmas
======
Michie
I visited Yiwu last year. It was fun looking around and seeing all of these
item. But I imagined it to be lively, yet there were very few people shopping
around in the area. I've asked the sellers why. They said it's because most of
their clients buy their items online already but before there were a lot of
people shopping at Yiwu.

Things to note: For Christmas shoppers, they only sell wholesale (1000 pcs or
more depending on the product, 100 pcs if the item is pricey). Most stalls
wouldn't sell you anything if you will only buy a few items even if you try to
explain you need it as a product sample.

Since it is wholesale, make sure you order it in advance as most of their
products are located in different province in China. Some of them have to ship
it to Yiwu first and they would advice that your orders will arrive 3-5 days.

If you are just travelling using the train and need to carry all your items,
don't buy too much because you have to walk a very long path with very high
stairs carrying all of those stuff (No elevator). And you only have 15 mins
time to walk from train station to train platform.

Advice: Rent a car from Yiwu to Shanghai for example. It's not that expensive.
They also have shipping companies to your country, so you can ship your items
to your country. It looks risky because it's not UPS or DHL, but it did
arrived at my place so their shipping is ok.

Almost all of the sellers don't know how to speak English. It's a must to have
a translator.

Yiwu Hotel prices are very cheap and provides nice accommodation. I love the
food in the area and it's cheap too! :)

For me, best and fastest way to travel to Yiwu: Shanghai then take train to
Yiwu. :)

It was fun! :)

------
bobf
The sheer size is almost unimaginable from the perspective of an individual
walking around, if the 4 million sq m listed in the article is accurate. For
comparison, that means Yiwu is roughly 400x larger than an average Walmart --
and certainly must be much more densely stocked.

I recently visited Seoul's Dongdaemun shopping area and the scale was
shocking. It includes dozens of massive, multi-story buildings that span
roughly 10 city blocks. When it was built in 1970, it was the largest such
market space in Asia. (They claim it is still the largest, but perhaps the
distinction is because Yiwu is considered a city.)

If the average city block is ~10k sq m, then 10 blocks with an average of 4
stories per building yields 400k square meters of space.. which is a mere 10%
of Yiwu's claimed size -- wow! You could spend weeks walking around Dongdaemun
without seeing everything, but the experience was similar to what the article
describes Yiwu as -- booth after booth of the same types of mostly wholesale
merchandise.

~~~
Macuyiko
I visited Dongdaemun a few times as well, as well as a similar electronics
markets in Beijing and Shenzen. Same for clothes.

It does wonders to really make you feel globalization and industrialization at
scale in a way that can't be explained or grasped in a classroom, and how much
markup gets added before you see the items landing in your local luxury
shopping mall, together with nice looking sales people telling you what a
bargain you're getting or how special the items are. Don't be fooled.

------
chrischen
I actually visited Yiwu to tour a painting factory as part of a China trip to
visit artists.

The infamous painting of the rows upon rows of identical paintings and one
painter walking down the isles is from a factory in Yiwu.
[https://www.instapainting.com/blog/company/2015/10/28/how-
to...](https://www.instapainting.com/blog/company/2015/10/28/how-to-
paint-10000-paintings/)

------
rmason
In Michigan, just North of Flint, we've got the small Bavarian village of
Frankenmuth which is a huge tourist draw with lots of handmade German crafts.

[http://www.frankenmuth.org/](http://www.frankenmuth.org/)

Just outside town is Bronner's
[https://www.bronners.com/](https://www.bronners.com/) which is a superstore
dedicated just to Christmas and open every day of the year except Christmas.
It's a unique only Michigan attraction, never seen anything like it in my
travels across America. I would imagine nowadays most of their merchandise
comes from Yiwu.

------
spraak
Many times in my life I've looked around at all the factory manufactured
things and have been amazed first at the amount -- that so much of my material
life is made in a factory -- and then have wondered, how much of earth is
covered in factories? in that, how much does it really require to produce
soooooo much, as it is not just around me, but around most of the world's
people. It is probably only a small bit of the earth's total land area, but I
do wonder.

------
GutenYe
I live in Yiwu, AMA.

~~~
yzh
Just out of curiosity, is there any child labor involved in this? Also, what
proportion of local population is doing this (considering both workers and
business owners)? Why this city, but not other cities around? Anything special
of your hometown? Thank you!

~~~
GutenYe
Most of the workers are coming from places outside Yiwu, and their population
has exceed the local ones. And most of local population are business owners
and factory owners.

I haven't heard of any child labor involved, For Yiwu is rich and has very
high level of education and not lacking of workers here.

I think what made Yiwu as a global wholesale place is most of its history. The
first group of Father-Candy-Man came in 1600s.[1]

It has many many foreigners and a good culture around them, you'll love it
when you come and visit it.

[1] [http://www.yiwu-market-guide.com/yiwu-market-
history.html](http://www.yiwu-market-guide.com/yiwu-market-history.html)

------
jpatokal
2014\. But worth a second look, because nothing much has changed, and because
the composition of some of those photos is stunning.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Well, much more trading business is done online now, coupled with a general
slow down in the Chinese economy/world trade:

[http://www.voanews.com/a/wholesale-capital-of-the-world-
grap...](http://www.voanews.com/a/wholesale-capital-of-the-world-grapples-
with-slowdown/3323010.html)

~~~
jpatokal
From the friendly article: _The sheer scale of what’s in front of me belies
the fact that Yiwu market’s heyday was in the past – much of this trade is now
migrating online, to websites such as Alibaba and Made In China._

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That was 2014, it has accelerated greatly in 2016.

~~~
throwawaylalala
Nice try. Yiwu is still HUGE, and a great place to find products to sell, or a
place for a product you need.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
No one is denyng that, but like every other trading mall in china, times are
changing. Yiwu gets the brunt of it because it got so much business, but the
traders from the Middle East and Africa have cut back.

Next thing you'll tell me that the Canton Fair is still going strong, which it
isn't.

------
coygui
haha. Nice to see my hometown appears in hacker news ;)

~~~
micaksica
Do you know any of the people that work or have worked in these factories?
What do they think of this work? What do they think of the people that
endlessly consume these things?

~~~
contingencies
These days probably half of the goods are sold in China.

------
andrewstuart
Sounds like something from the Twilight Zone.

