While it’s no news that factories in Yiwu produce 60 percent of the world’s Christmas decorations, the Jinping family, working in one of the factories, have no idea what the bubble stars and stockings will be used for. Nor does the elder Jinping know about the culture of Christmas.

Santa’s Christmas Workshop look like a sequin-covered slaughterhouse. Santa’s hat and the ornaments you hang on your tree aren’t made somewhere at Arctic Circle by eleves: they are made in sweatshops in the Chinese city of Yiwu, about 300 kilometers from Shanghai. It looks like the artist Anish Kapoor has been let loose with his wax cannon again.