Word: hangjuan
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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Santa's workshop is anything but shipshape: sacks of bell-shaped ornaments cascade from tabletops, plastic buckets leak cartoon-colored chemicals onto the cement floor, and scattered tinsel is everywhere. Ding Hangjuan, a 43-year-old former peasant, kicks through the Yuletide wreckage. Ding set up her ornament factory in an abandoned schoolhouse six years ago to manufacture decorations for Christmas trees in the U.S. This year, Ding's 400 workers labored overtime to supply a brand-new market. "My buyers were once foreigners, but now 10% of what I make stays here in China," she says...
...factory, Ding Hangjuan considers herself an expert in holiday paraphernalia. She's gleaned some of her designs from Hollywood movies, copied others from competitors, and learned a thing or two about her overseas buyers along the way. "Americans don't like images of Jesus in pain," she notes. "They prefer symbols of good luck, like angels and five-pointed stars." And although she doesn't quite say it, she thinks American revelers are a bit dim. Case in point: among her big sellers this year is a red bow with a tiny pinecone in the middle. She had paid peasants...
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