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Friday, December 23, 2005

hey bill o'reilly what do you have to say on this?


Santa's Chinese elves

By Pallavi Ayar BEIJING - While Santa Claus lives it up with Rudolph at the North Pole, his elves have relocated to southern China's towns and villages. Some 70% of the world's Christmas ornaments and other paraphernalia now originate in officially atheist mainland China. Tinsel, Santas, mistletoe and artificial trees of every shape and hue are churned out at a relentless pace by thousands of factory workers in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. According to the China General Administration of customs, Guangdong on its own exported more than US$620 million worth of Christmas products in 2004. For the country as a whole, the figure was over $1 billion. Even the White House now celebrates a "Made in China" Christmas. In 2003, seven of the trees adorning the US president's residence were manufactured in China. In fact more than two-thirds of the world's artificial Christmas trees are made in the single city of Shenzhen. As winter's icy tentacles lead into Christmas, Santa's Chinese elves are enjoying a bit of a quiet period after having toiled for the majority of the year. "Our busy period is really February to October," says He Li, assistant sales manager of Yiwu Festival Gifts Company. The company has annual sales of over $12 million and employs between 800-1,000 workers. It exports 90% of its products to the US, Russia and Chile and specializes in manufacturing hanging toys, trees and Christmas gifts..................


(i collect christmas ornaments and most of mine are handblown glass out of eastern europe and/or italy)

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