Father Christmas's grotto is not an icy cave in Lapland but the economic heart of southern China, where almost two-thirds of the world's Christmas trees and decorations are made.
In factories staffed by predominantly Buddhist workers who have scarcely any idea of the meaning of Christmas, the baubles, Santas, lights and tinsel that mark the West's biggest festival are churned out at a relentless pace.
PHOTO: AFP
"No one would dispute it if you said China is the biggest manufacturer of Christmas products. Even its customs department has figures just for exports of these goods," said Paul French, publishing and marketing director of Access Asia, a market research company with a special focus on China.
According to Customs figures, China exported US$1.6 billion worth of Christmas products last year, of which more than half went to the US, including seven artificial trees erected in the White House.
China's export of Christmas-related goods in the first nine months of this year amounted to US$850 million.
More than half of that -- US$510 million worth -- came from Guangdong Province.
In the US alone, unless your family purchased a natural tree, you would have had a 70 percent chance of celebrating your Christmas with an artificial tree manu-factured in Guangdong's Shenzhen City.
Shenzhen SG Handicraft Co is one of more than 300 enterprises that produces Christmas items.
Chairman William Cheng said 80 percent of the company's sales came from Christmas trees. His company makes 400,000 artificial trees a year that are exported to major supermarkets and department stores in the US and the UK.
"We are full of factories of this kind in Shenzhen," said Cheng from his factory, now in a lull after the pre-Christmas rush.
"There is so much competition out there. A lot of our customers want high quality, new products. To attract more foreign investors, we make more fibre-optic trees, trees with flashing stars, candles and so on. Our novelty trees are also quite popular."
Cheng's factory, an hour from Shenzhen City, is clean and brightly lit if a little unkempt.
At long workbenches, a few late-season workers tool the last of this year's orders.
Cheng said production usually started in February each year, after the Lunar New Year, with goods ready for delivery in October.
During the height of the production period, Cheng would have 600 workers producing different types of Christmas ornaments.
Starting his own business only three years ago, Cheng said one of the most difficult things about making Christmas decorations in a non-Christian country is to understand Western culture and meet its requirements.
"They have different perceptions of colors. They like white trees, which is supposed to be a funeral color here and doesn't seem appropriate in this happy season," he said.
Cheng's turnover this year has doubled to US$6 million, but he says rising prices for plastic, the raw material of Christmas, along with increasing salaries, are cutting into profits.
"I should start thinking about developing products for other Western festivals, like the Valentine's Day or Halloween," he said.
FIREPOWER: On top of the torpedoes, the military would procure Kestrel II anti-tank weapons systems to replace aging license-produced M72 LAW launchers Taiwan is to receive US-made Mark 48 torpedoes and training simulators over the next three years, following delays that hampered the navy’s operational readiness, the Ministry of National Defense’s latest budget proposal showed. The navy next year would acquire four training simulator systems for the torpedoes and take receipt of 14 torpedoes in 2027 and 10 torpedoes in 2028, the ministry said in its budget for the next fiscal year. The torpedoes would almost certainly be utilized in the navy’s two upgraded Chien Lung-class submarines and the indigenously developed Hai Kun, should the attack sub successfully reach operational status. US President Donald Trump
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS