Horse-themed cultural products gallop into global markets ahead of Chinese Spring Festival

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Yiwu, an eastern Chinese city known as "the world's supermarket," is seeing a surge in foreign orders -- especially from the United States -- for various horse-themed red envelopes and traditional Chinese ornament products as the Spring Festival approaches.

Feng Chaoyun, chairman of the Yiwu Festival Products Industry Association, said 30 percent of the hanging decorations produced in this city are bound for overseas markets.

Having sold New Year decorations for years, Feng said that red envelopes are in high demand across Southeast Asia, while fortune stick sets -- which typically include items like couplets bearing blessings -- sell especially well in Europe and the United States.

"Our exports to Southeast Asia increased by 23 percent. Sales in the European and American markets are also great -- up 17 percent so far," he said.

Production lines for festive cultural and creative products in Yiwu have been running at full throttle, with shipments going overseas starting as early as October 2025. Many factories have ramped up production by hiring more workers in response to the influx of new orders.

"We've added more personnel this year because we are not producing ordinary red envelopes but complicated crafts. We have 600 to 700 people producing 200,000 envelopes a day," said Jin Zhidan, manager of a local packaging factory.

The United States ranks among the top sources of orders for China's Year of the Horse cultural products. In San Francisco's Chinatown -- one of the largest and oldest in the U.S. -- Albert Chang, the owner of a 52-year-old kite shop, said that many local Chinese and Americans are buying goods to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year.

"Chinese New Year red envelopes. We got some the Year of the Horse over here. Behind you are the big ones, (and) small ones," said Albert Chang while introducing products to customers.

In addition to red envelopes, Spring Festival couplets -- known as "Fai Chun" in Cantonese -- are also selling briskly in Chinatown.

"For Chinese New Year, we sell a lot of red envelopes. We sell a lot of these called Fai Chun in Cantonese. Every year, they basically replace the old one with the new one," said Vincent Fung, owner of a cultural and creative product store.

Many local store owners like Feng said business over the past year has been turbulent, but they remain hopeful about the potential good fortune the Year of the Horse may bring.

"A horse is a good animal, I believe, because we have the saying called 'Ma Tao Kung Cheng', which is success of the Year of the Horse. Horse is, in general, a very good one, just like dragon and tiger. Those are the good products to sell especially for foreigners." said Fung.

Today, celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival has become a habit for many Americans. In particular, the tradition of elders giving red envelopes to younger generations has quietly found its way into American life.

Two Mexican American sisters, who were selecting red envelopes at a cultural products store, said their mother always gives them red envelopes during the Spring Festival.

"(She's) doing this from ever since we could remember, actually. So now, we're returning the favor to her. I don't know why she started it, but it's been a tradition of ours now, too. So, we're adopting it, too," said Curiel, the Mexican American customer.

"I think that's the beautiful part, especially about the Bay Area. There's so many different cultures. You kind of get to learn from them," her sister said.

As frequent international travelers, the Curiel sisters said they've already started planning their first trip to China. They believe learning about Chinese traditions will help them prepare for and fully embrace the experience.