Recently, the Guizhou Song and Dance Ensemble reached the building of Europe Center in Berlin to unveil the “Happy Chinese New Year” celebrations in 2020.
The ethnic performances, such as Dong songs (the folk songs of the Dong ethnic group are performed with a group of people to make a polyphonic singing without musical instruments or a conductor), man’s group dance of Miao ethnic group, I come from Basha, (Basha refers to a Miao village) and woman’s group dance of Yi ethnic group, A-Mei (young girls), have won waves of applause from the audience who gathered around the arena and stood in the aisle. Besides, the audience truly marveled at colorful Chinese folk culture as young performers walked downwards to direct them to blow Muye (a traditional instrument of Miao ethnic group).
Sawsan Chebli, state secretary for Citizenship and International Affairs at the State of Berlin, said that it has become a tradition of Berlin to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The relevant events have been continuously staged at China Cultural Center in Berlin, serving as a symbol of closer ties between Berlin and China. Meanwhile, Berlin welcomes the Spring Festival-themed events as they will enable local residents to have a better understanding of the Chinese Lunar New Year from new perspectives.
In addition to wonderful cultural and art performances, there were still other activities held to attract local people, including Chinese book fair, photo exhibition of Guizhou’s scenery, tourism promotion, paper-cutting and calligraphy. Wu Ken, Chinese ambassador to Germany, noted in his speech that China and German have seen active cultural exchanges and cooperation with fruitful results between cultural institutions. In particular, some highlights of exchanges have been seen in the field of contemporary culture and art. The exchanges and cooperation in culture and tourism have laid a solid foundation for public opinion for the building of China-German friendly relations in view of a huge market and broad prospect for tourism cooperation.
“The ‘Happy Chinese New Year’ events allow Berlin citizens to get a closer look to the Chinese culture, the Spring Festival and the differences of new year between China and the Western countries,” said Jens Otte, principal of a Germany elementary school in Berlin, who likes Chinese culture very much. The elementary school has established partnership with a school in Beijing, and will try to integrate Chinese culture into class. In recent years, the “China Day” activities take place in the school before every Chinese lunar new year. “Children in the school have shown great curiosity to the “China Day” events and are keen for more activities of this kind.” he added.
After the paper-cutting lesson at the scene, Barbel, a citizen of Berlin, was glad to show her work to the reporter. She said that she was overwhelmed by profound Chinese culture, and will participate in the next year’s “Happy Chinese Year” event.