Diplomatic Pouch: With Mike Peters

A surge of votes for songs in Chinese kept the race tight in Finland's online Santa Claus Season's Greetings Song Contest 2012. But at the end of the month-long vote, the song that attracted the most votes from Internet users around the world was Believe by the Finnish rock band Negative.

The competition was jointly organized by Radio86, the Santa Claus Foundation, the China Internet Information Center and China Radio International. Most votes from China favored Saara Aalto (for Blessed With Love/Ai De Zhu Fu) and the Semmarit (for Zhong Guo Ren).

Forty-one percent of the votes went to Negative, 38 percent to Saara Aalto and the remaining 21 percent to the Semmarit - which means Finland's Santa will be delivering presents to people around the world to the tune of Believe.

Jonne Aaron, the singer of Negative, accepted the award on behalf of the band at the office of Radio86 in Tampere, Finland, saying the win is the best Christmas present he could imagine.

"I actually thought that Saara Aalto, who sang beautifully in Chinese, would win," he said. Turkka Saarikoski from the Semmarit said the choir was happy to be able to sing to the Chinese in their own language. "It really makes us feel proud to be able to sing this song for the Chinese people."

The contest was part of a campaign to promote Finland in China as Santa's home. In December "the real Finnish Santa Claus toured in 29 Wanda shopping centers in 20 Chinese cities," the Finnish embassy in Beijing said on its website. The Santa's song contest is likely to become an annual event.

Last month a group of 10 gallery owners and managers from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou spent a week visiting Oslo and Stavanger, a trip organized by the Norwegian embassy in Beijing.

The group spent most of its time in Oslo, visiting art galleries, museums, arts management and public funding institutions. The gallerists were very interested to see how government funding makes non-profit institutions possible in Norway, the embassy says on its website, while similar organizations in China have to transform themselves into semi-commercial entities in order to survive.

The Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra ended the year with guest appearances in China, starting at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on Dec 29 and 30 before traveling to Chengdu (Jan 1) and Beijing (Jan 3). Chinese Beijing Television reported on this tour in a documentary, "40 Years Diplomatic Relations between Austria/China", the Austrian embassy in Beijing reports.

A record-setting number of Chinese visitors traveled to Denmark last year, the Danish embassy reported. During the first 10 months, 75,870 Chinese people entered Denmark - representing an increase of almost 20 percent year to date. Although figures for the last two months have yet to be reported, 2010's record of 62,185 has already been surpassed.

This year two new direct routes between Denmark and China will open. Scandinavian Airlines will fly between Copenhagen and Shanghai and Air China between Copenhagen and Beijing, which will increase the current capacity between the two capitals by 60 percent - equivalent to up to 50,000 more passengers a year.

Embassy news can be sent to mike.peters.cd@chinadaily.com.cn