The world's market place

A girl unpacking goods at Yiwu... I love all the pink in this picture!

Have you ever wondered where those trinkets from the dollar store come from? Have you ever wanted to see every possible good you could ever want to buy all in one place? Have you ever wondered what 15 million square feet of shopping looked likes like (that’s 6 times the size of the Mall of America)? I think I sufficiently say that I’ve seen it all.

Late Friday afternoon I was assigned to go to Yiwu, home to the world’s largest small commodities market. If you’re asking yourself “what is a small commodity?” it’s basically anything and everything you could ever imagine buying. They’ve got fake flowers, arts and crafts, hair accessories, make up, jewelry, toys, stationary, pins, pens, clocks, watches, flashlights, MP3 players, kites, kitchen appliances, cooking supplies, hardware supplies, furniture, art, bikes and a whole lot of other things that I’m leaving out but am too lazy to type.

I’ve heard and read about this place and have actually been secretly hoping to get to go. While the circumstances weren’t ideal – I was assigned TWO 1,000 word articles on Friday to be due on Wednesday –  I was excited to go and see this place for myself. It was only about a 2-hour train ride away from Shanghai in neighboring Zhejiang province and definitely felt like I was in hundreds of miles away from Shanghai in Podunk China.

I was awestruck walking around the labyrinth of corridors and hallways of different vendors. I have never in my life seen so many products in one place. And I only went to the International Trade City – the place that’s 6 times the size of the Mall of America. There are countless other markets that specialize in other products. After the awe wore off I began feeling a bit uneasy; the kind of uneasiness I get when I go to a suspect restaurant and wonder about the quality of the food. It not only seemed to me incredibly wasteful, but also troubling about what was in some of these products - especially the makeup and the jewelry.

My suspicions were confirmed after chatting with a senior executive of a global supply chain company. “Our clients (multinationals) would never come to Yiwu to buy their products,” he said, later suggesting one could get an unpleasant disease from wearing the jewelry sold at the trade market. It was kind of a miracle that I had met this guy, because I think his insight really made the story.

But one thing he said really stuck with me. As he was going on about how these products don’t pass social (like worker’s rights) standards (or safety or sustainability standards for that matter) the workers don’t care. In fact, he said, they want to work overtime. So while I (or some of you more China-adverse readers) could get on my high horse, all these useless trinkets do provide jobs, food, a living for other people.

I kind of left feeling disheartened. I just felt like the market, the city even, epitomized so many things I find wrong with China - wastefulness, greed, unsustainability, workers abuse. I had heard such rave reviews about Yiwu and the market. And while it was something unlike anything I had ever seen, I have the same sentiments about Yiwu as I do about some “reconstructed temple” or “scenic spot.”