Spring Festival boosts China abroad

Holiday gives people worldwide chance to learn more about the country's culture and traditions

As Chinese at home and abroad celebrate Spring Festival, people worldwide are also using it as an opportunity to learn more about Chinese culture and traditions.

On Tuesday, Spring Festival sounds filled the air at the Lincoln Center in New York when the New York Philharmonic played classical pieces by Chinese composers.

The orchestra started the tradition of hosting an annual Spring Festival concert in 2012 to celebrate China's cultural heritage and to honor the Chinese-American community.

What stunned the audience most was the final piece, also the New York premier of Chinese composer Tan Dun's symphony Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women.

This was not merely a multi-layered symphony with sonic grandeur and a triumphant finale, but an audiovisual masterpiece aimed at preserving a disappearing ancient language used exclusively by some women in Hunan province.

In San Jose, Costa Rica, the home of Chinese-Americans Raymond Tang and his wife Isabel Yung was decked out in red and the door was covered with Chinese characters.

The Tang family also helped to prepare cultural activities planned by the Chinese community in Costa Rica.

"I think people in Costa Rica know what Spring Festival is. People called me to wish me a happy Year of the Monkey," Yung said.

Francesca Romana Di Biagio, an Italian journalist at the Il Giornale newspaper in Milan, said more and more Italians, including many who have no links with China, like to celebrate Spring Festival.

"The festival has become increasingly popular in Milan. Many people have got into the habit of celebrating it in Chinese restaurants - a sign of the growing integration of the Chinese community in Italy," she said.

In the early 1990s, Milan used to celebrate Spring Festival with "extraordinary dragons and lanterns full of colors and joy", said Davide Rossi, a historian and director of the Locarno-based Institute of History and Philosophy of Contemporary Thought.

"This means that the Chinese community in Milan for a long time has been very influential in being able to transfer the value and beauty of Chinese traditions," he said.

Last year, the Chinese Ministry of Culture organized more than 800 events to celebrate Spring Festival in more than 320 cities in 118 countries and regions.

China has set up 25 overseas cultural centers to promote the country's culture and strengthen exchanges and cooperation.

In November, President Xi Jinping and Singaporean Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong opened the China Cultural Center during Xi's visit to the city state, which shares cultural roots and maintains close relations with China.