A shopping paradise comes true

If you can buy it anywhere in the world, you can likely buy it in Yiwu - 'it' being almost anything, including life-size robo Santas, who dance and play the sax. Erik Nilsson explores Earth's largest mall in 'the supermarket of the world'.

Editor's Note: This is Part 3 of the six-part Yangtze diaries series based on journalist Erik Nilsson's recent 35-day, 2,000-kilometer journey to 11 cities to discover how the Yangtze River Economic Belt has transformed over the 40 years since the reform and opening-up.

I encountered - and then joined - an army of life-size, saxophone-playing, dancing, robotic Santas in Yiwu. I happened across these automated, musical Kris Kringles in the planet's biggest mall in Zhejiang province's Yiwu, a city known as the "supermarket of the world".