An Almost German Christmas – in Shanghai

If you are in Europe near Christmastime, particularly in Germany, you will probably see Christmas Markets that are temporary huts arrayed in most town squares selling all sorts of Christmas ornaments and gifts, food and hot beverages since the weather is likely to be cold. One of the beverages is Gluhwein, a sweet spiced “mulled” wine served hot. After a few of those, you don’t care so much about the temperature.

I’ve had the good fortune to visit Christmas Markets in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Berlin and a beautiful little town tucked into a steep valley in north western Germany called Monschau.

German Christmas ornaments are unique – usually delicate and of wood, glass, or my particular favorites, hand painted pewter. I found my first “German” hand-painted pewter Christmas ornament at a small shop in Zurich a long time ago and have picked up others when I’ve seen them since. At a Christmas market in Nuremberg, while looking at these and small wooden ornaments, I was told there was a whole town in Germany that made these things as their main industry. I forgot the name at the time, but years later, while indulging in the ridiculous extravagance of a European delivery of a 2002 BMW 5 Series car (it’s a long story and I was swimming in cash at the time), I had time, was in Germany and managed to learn the place was Seiffen.

Seiffen is in the southeast corner of Germany, almost to the Czech border and an hour or so from Dresden. It’s not very big, but almost every shop in the town looks like a storybook and there they do indeed make and sell wooden Christmas ornaments in all shapes and sizes including the “smokers” that use little incense pyramids and send incense smoke out the mouths of various characters made of wood and colorfully painted. I bought a bunch and use the ones I kept at Christmastime, never forgetting Seiffen.

When I first came to China in 2007, I knew I’d be here for Christmas, so I brought along one of my German pewter Santa figures to add a little color to an otherwise bland holiday. I met some people in the metal business and asked them if these things could be made in China – which of course they could – and got some estimates and an analysis of the metal composition of the pewter. These things were expensive from Germany – forty bucks or more even for something little – and China made everything at much lower costs.

Anyway, I didn’t want to commit to enough volume for pay for a mold, it would have taken four or five hundred of the same shape, so I tabled the idea. I always felt kind of bad about making something that the German people of Seiffen had used for their livelihood for seven hundred years so it didn’t bother me much to abandon the idea. And I ordered a few more items directly from Germany – including a foot-high pewter Christmas tree, all painted up on both sides which cost me a fortune, but serves the purpose.

This past Friday, I went to one of the three Paulaner German restaurants in Shanghai with a colleague, a British guy whose English I can hardly understand because of his heavy London accent. God knows how the Chinese kids manage with this guy. This weekend, December 9-11, Paulaner had their Christmas Market, The combination of German food and a Christmas market proved irresistible.

This particular Paulaner is surrounded by a park-like area in the French Concession part of Shanghai and they had plenty of room to set up the temporary huts and booths very much like those in Germany, including several selling sausages, hot chocolate and of course, the warming Gluhwein. It was cold Friday night.

I was disappointed that only one of the booths was selling traditional wooden German Christmas ornaments , incense smokers and the colorfully painted wooden Nutcracker figures. I was looking things over, thinking about maybe buying one as a gift, but they didn’t carry the small incense cones which are hard to come by in Christmas scents and I wanted to protect my small stash. I asked the prices anyway and was stunned. Five bucks for a small sized smoker and about six or seven bucks for the larger size.

What’s this? I wondered. And you are right. These guys were all made in China, looked exactly like the ones made in Seiffen and other small German cities as they have been for hundreds of years, but were selling at a fifth of the price or less. The people at the booth told me their largest customers are in Germany. Go figure.

In retrospect, I felt kind of stupid thinking about my abortive pewter figure gambit. I actually felt bad thinking that some poor German whose family had worked for generations molding an painting thousands of these little ornaments, authentically, would be displaced by some low-wage Chinese who had no idea of the traditions or heritage with which they were absconding. I’m out-of-touch. Some German beat me to it with no qualms whatsoever.

There is no end to the things you can get here at low prices – without sacrificing quality – oil paintings, silk comforters, clothes, jewelry, pearls – all of which I’ve dabbled with; and now German Christmas ornaments. My problem in making a killing hasn’t been in sourcing – it’s finding effective channels at the other end.