YIWU, China, Nov. 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yiwugo.com, the official website of the Yiwu Commodity Market, is the largest commodity wholesale market in the world. The 2024 Christmas peak shopping season arrived earlier than the previous year. Statistics from Yiwugo show that order and transaction volumes related to the keyword "Christmas" from January to February 2024 increased by 64.32% compared to the same period last year. This has resulted in a wave of early Christmas purchases in the first quarter. In contrast, for the domestic market, traditional Chinese New Year items like "lanterns" and "spring couplets" have been experiencing a strong surge in demand since the Mid-Autumn Festival. Zhang Li, a Yiwugo vendor, noted that since late October, his company has shifted into the sales phase for Christmas products targeting the domestic market.
Autumn Christmas Crafts, owned by Zhang, introduced its first popular product of the year—an artificial Christmas wreath— in March and April, primarily for the U.S. market. The wreath features dark green and white as the main colors, accented by gray, red, and other artificial flowers and plants. The innovative color scheme and exquisite craftsmanship quickly won over American buyers, and it soon exploded in popularity, with single orders reaching millions during peak times.
Autumn Christmas Crafts focuses on mid- to high-end Christmas wreaths, garlands, maple leaves, and wall hangings, primarily targeting at the European market. They use eco-friendly materials and combine advanced molding machines with hand assembly. To meet current demands, over 50% of this year's products feature new designs.
Autumn Christmas Crafts is also known for its excellent craftsmanship, earning high praise from customers. For example, the red berry ornaments they produce boast vivid colors and lasting appeal, with products designed to resist mold, odors, and glue peeling for a longer time. Though production costs are about 20% higher than average, this premium quality provides customers with a better experience, which has translated into strong sales on both Yiwugo and other international e-commerce platforms over the years.
Xuchun Lantern, another seller of festival decorations on Yiwugo, is in its busiest season of the year. Ms. Huang Xiaochun, the owner, who has been in the lantern business for years, sees demand surge every year from Mid-Autumn Festival until Chinese New Year. Her company focuses on mid- to high-end lanterns, catering to clients across all provinces and in Chinese communities worldwide.
According to Huang, ancient-style lanterns with distinct Chinese elements have gained popularity recently, especially wooden DIY crescent- and rhombus-shaped lanterns. Building on this trend, the company launched DIY hand-painted lanterns with elegantly designed packaging, a structure that facilitates easy shipping and provides an excellent user experience. Several renowned scenic spots like Wuzhen and Songcheng are among Xuchun Lantern's clients in China.
In September 2024, the company introduced a lotus-shaped hand lantern for children, which topped 1 million RMB in sales within a month. Chinatowns around the world are showing a preference for ornate, traditional-style "Qiaojiao" palace lanterns this year. With innovative colors and high-quality new materials, Xuchun Lantern stands out in international markets and has many loyal customers with over 20 years of history.
As time goes on, festivals like Halloween, Christmas, Carnival, and Thanksgiving are just around the corner. Yiwugo vendors are gearing up for another busy and bustling holiday season.
** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **
Yiwugo Sees Strong Sales of Christmas and Chinese New Year Merchandise
BEIJING, Dec. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from China Daily:
The sculptural arts are one of the gems of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. Residents in North China's Shanxi province will have an opportunity to glimpse the essence of these cultural assets as an ancient sculpture arts exhibition will kick off at the beginning of the new year at Shanxi Museum in Taiyuan, the provincial capital.
The event, called "Classical and Glory" Ancient Greek and Roman Sculpture Arts Exhibition, will open on Wednesday.
The event's organizers said that this exhibition will be not only a display of artworks but "a dialogue of civilizations".
Shanxi is one of the cradles of Chinese culture, with its earliest ancient civilization reaching its peak some 3,000 years ago. This was evidenced in an archaeological discovery at the Taosi site in Xiangfen county, which pointed to the formation of one of the earliest states in China.
That was roughly when the city states emerged in ancient Greece, which had ushered in a period of social and cultural prosperity for more than 600 years — from c.8th century to c.2nd century. Even after the fall of ancient Greece in 146 BC, its culture and arts continued to influence those of the ancient Roman Empire, which began in the early 1st century.
The ancient Greek and Roman cultures are the origins of Western civilization. The two cultures feature a continuity and ancient Roman Culture has a strong influence and inheritance from ancient Greek Culture.
And this is especially true in the sculptural arts. During the Hellenistic and Classical period, ancient Greek sculptors aimed to depict the human form realistically but in an idealized and harmonious manner. Ancient Greek sculptors carefully studied human anatomy and sought to capture the essence of physical perfection and inner vitality. Deities were the common subjects featured in the sculptors' works.
There were also remarkable similarities in the works created by ancient Roman sculptors. Roman sculpture is known for its grandeur and realism.
Like the Greeks, Roman sculptural artist strove for perfection and illustrated its subjects in this manner. The Greek and Roman sculptural arts also pursued a similar level of aesthetics in geometry.
At the exhibition at Shanxi Museum, a total of 134 ancient Greek and Roman sculptures will be on display. The exhibition will be arranged in five sections to present the arts of different locales, periods and styles. The five sections are called "Gods of the Olympus", "Blessing from Gods", "the Grandeur of Augustan Arts", "Garden of Rome" and "External Vitality".
The Gods of Olympus section features the sculptures created in the Classical Period of ancient Greece, from 480 to 325 BC. The works highlight a style of harmony, grandeur and idealism. In addition, other cultural relics of that period, like attic-style vases and pottery vessels, will be on show.
There are also sculptures created by Roman sculptors imitating the classical Greek style. One exhibit is the Apollo Sauroktonos, a sculpture created by ancient Roman sculptor Praxiteles featuring a bow-holding Apollo fixing his sights on a lizard. Despite its inheritance of the classical style, a prominent characteristic of the sculpture is that Apollo was not portrayed as a god of grandeur, but a young man of beauty and tenderness.
The Blessing from Gods section features works created in the transitional period from the ancient Greek to ancient Roman. Deities of the early Roman mythology are major subjects of the works. While the inheritance of classical Greek style is still visible, the works show a balance of solemnity and amiability of the deities, which are depicted in smoother lines and more casual postures.
The Grandeur of Augustan Arts section mainly features the busts of the Augustan period. The style of sculptures shows a completion of the Greek-Roman transition, with an emphasis on realism and details. The busts, depicting real or realistic looking people, are one of the major contributions that ancient Roman sculptors made to the world. A bust usually features great detail in the facial expression to highlight the personality of the individual.
The Garden of Rome section aims to present the lives of ancient Romans by exhibiting sculptures, glassware and mosaic arts of that period.
The External Vitality section mainly displays sculptures and other articles relating to funeral and burial ceremonies during the ancient Roman period.
Thinking about life and death was a major part of the philosophic framework of the ancient Romans and was also a theme of the period's sculptural art.
Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture has influenced art in many regions of the world. And this influence also reached China's Shanxi province, said an expert at Shanxi Museum.
One of the three Buddhist cave art treasure houses in China, Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi's Datong city, is a monumental work of the cultural integration between China and the West. In the processing of creating cave statues more than 1,500 years ago, the influence of the Gandhara art was remarkable.
Gandhara, an ancient region spanning what is now northwest Pakistan and parts of east Afghanistan, was historically a crossroads linking India, Persia and other cultural centers as faraway as ancient Greece.
Gandhara Buddhist art is a unique art style that blends Greco-Persian and Buddhist influences.
Many Buddhist statues can be found along the route of Buddhism's spread in China, like the Mogao Grottoes in Gansu, Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi and Longmen Grottoes in Henan.
"In Yungang Grottoes, the Gandhara or even Greek elements are visible on many Buddha statues, like the curly hair and details of clothes," he added.
"After the communication and integration among different cultures that lasted for thousands of years, Shanxi Museum deems it an important mission to continue the cultural exchanges in the context of a modern era," said the expert. The "Classical and Glory" Ancient Greek and Roman Sculpture Arts Exhibition is the latest move in this effort.
** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **
Iconic art to go on show in cradle of Chinese culture
