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'.

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".

Just for kicks, I donned a red-felt hat and stood among their ranks, trying to blend in.

It ... sorta worked. Not really, though.

If you can buy it-"it" being nearly anything－anywhere in the world, you can buy it in Yiwu. It's indeed a shopper's paradise come true.

In fact, the chances are pretty decent that what you're wearing or using right now may have been purchased wholesale from the city.

The 75,000-booth Yiwu International Trade Market is the epicenter of the world's largest trading hub for small commodities.

It's so vast that, if you were to visit every stall within a week, you'd only get eight seconds at each one.

One Western documentarian created an artistic video of its "infinity" that, by pure chance, popped up in my mobile-news feed a day after my visit.

I think it to be an appropriate word for the endlessness of the goods that stock countless shelves.

But, four decades ago, Yiwu's boundless retail sector was restricted. Ordinary citizens weren't allowed to operate large companies before the reform and opening-up.

"Our market originated from the local 'feathers-for-sugar' trade culture, which has a history of more than 300 years," He Haimei told me at her stall in the mall.

"Farmers would trade sugar, needles, thread and buttons－these very basic things－in exchange for chicken feathers around big festivals. This tradition made Yiwu what it is today."

She began her business by selling photos of performers from the film, Dream of the Red Chamber, for 1 yuan (14 US cents) outside cinemas.

She could earn 30 yuan in as many days.

"That was my husband's monthly wage back then. It was great money!"

She later made sun hats, using leftover material from a Japanese garment company in the city, and sold them for 0.3 yuan (4 US cents).

People started hawking goods at a street market that authorities shut down.

But she complained to a local leader.

"I told him that kids' trousers and other goods had been confiscated," she recalls.

"I said: 'All our goods come from Shanghai. If Shanghai can sell things, why can't we?'"

The official hosted a meeting about 20 days later, she remembers.

"He said we needed to lead the farmers to do business to get rich.

"He told us: 'We're leaders. We should serve the people.' I cried. I'd received an assurance that I could do business. It was a turning point for Yiwu."

Today, she exports thousands of kinds of scarves to over 30 countries, while her son runs a fashion-design studio in Italy.

The extent of Yiwu's internationalization became clearer to me when I met a Senegalese exporter who has lived in the city for 15 years and－although his English is excellent－he felt more comfortable doing the interview with me in Chinese.

Sula (his Chinese name) is among over 20,000 foreigners from 100 countries and regions who live in Yiwu. About half-a-million more visit to make purchases every year.

"Shopping in Yiwu is like shopping in the entire Chinese market," he told me, in Mandarin.

"The reason is very simple. In the Yiwu International Trade Market, you can find products from across the country, from places like Shandong, Fujian and Beijing ... People from the Middle East, the United States and France come to do business with me. That gives me an opportunity to do business with other countries."

Sula exports about 2,000 different products to African countries, including the Congo, Senegal and Gambia. I spotted the very same cups that I use in my apartment in Beijing in his display room.

I later visited his warehouses. Shirtless men glistened with sweat as they hustled to load nine semitrailers with goods headed to Senegal. Sula told me they pack between three and 20 truckloads a day－sometimes more.

How trade is accelerating became more apparent when I visited the 36-kilometer-long Hangzhou Bay Bridge. It connects the cities of Jiaxing and Ningbo in Zhejiang province, and has lopped hours off the travel time between cities in the Yangtze River Delta.

Goods and people can travel internationally by rail since the Yi-Xin-Ou train made its maiden voyage from Yiwu to Madrid in 2014. Trains from Yiwu now cross nine international routes to over 30 countries.

And the city's cross-border e-commerce companies are grasping the opportunities brought about by the Belt and Road Initiative.

"We used to transport goods to Hangzhou or Shanghai and then export them," Dayue Internet Technology manager Yue Xian explains.

"But, now, the Yi-Xin-Ou train enables us to transport goods directly from Yiwu to countries along the rail route."

Importantly, the increased connectivity links Yiwu with Zhejiang's provincial capital, Hangzhou, where the country's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba, is headquartered.

Alibaba's service platform Tmall Global has become the country's biggest cross-border e-commerce player since it was founded five years ago.

"We are actually helping many, many global brands come into China," the company's vice-president, Wei Chen, told me at Alibaba's headquarters.

Today, Tmall Global deals with over 18,000 brands from 74 countries, he says.

"A lot of the younger generation, they always come to Tmall Global to find the new stuff. So, I think, for a lot of foreign brands, China is the golden opportunity. And this is just the beginning."

Indeed, four decades after the three-century-old local "feather-for-sugar" platform was set free to fly into the future, Zhejiang province is soaring into the tomorrow of global trade.