Joining in the Spring Festival Temple Fair, Greeting Chinese New Year
At Jan 22th, 2017, there was a Chinese New Year Gala with the theme ”Spring Festival Temple Fair” breaking a new path in Riga. It was sponsored by Ministry of Culture of China and the Chinese Embassy in Latvia, and organized by Latvia Overseas Chinese Association, China Alumni Association of Latvia and Confucius Institute at University of Latvia. The gala lasted from 2PM to 7PM with various activities. Besides the main performance area, it was divided into other 5 areas: delicious Chinese food, Chinese talent, Chinese tea art, traditional game, Chinese film for children. Latvian people visited Spring Festival Temple Fair and welcomed Chinese New Year with family and friends joyfully and cheerfully. The activity was full of reunion and peaceful atmosphere.
A crowd of audiences gathered at hall and enjoyed the awesome performances on the stage. Riga 34 Secondary School presented a excellent singing in group and solo respectively, and Chinese teacher Pan Bin sang Full Moon in the Flowers with affection. There was a professional Chinese traditional instruments orchestra Milu to lead audiences to appreciate charm from Chinese traditional music. The hall was full of applause everywhere. Chinese teacher Zeng Qingjun, Wu Tiantian and Zeng Rong held a workshop for Chinese Paper-cutting with other experiential activities like calligraphy, ink painting and tea art, etc. There were lots of visitors in experience area.
When gala came to the end, Huang Yong, the Chinese Ambassador and deputy mayor of Riga expressed the good wishes to Chinese and Latvian people. During the gala,it counted around 2000 visitors unprecedentedly. With enhancing communication between China and Latvia, there were various platform for cultural exchanges increasingly. And participating enthusiasm from Latvian people to participate Chinese cultural activity was increasing also. The gala made visitors to feel strong atmosphere of Chinese Spring Festival and experience profound Chinese culture through such kind of amusing and enjoyable traditional way of Chinese festival celebration—Temple Fire. This event would shorten the distance and promote friendship between people from two countries.
