The Lantern Festival of the year of the OX came towards us on Friday. This is the first full moon night of the Chinese New Year. On the day before the first full moon night, more than thirty Chinese and foreign residents gathered at Luohu community service center to pre-celebrate this festival. We joyfully participated in the event of “Traditional DIY, Traditional handcrafting session-celebrate the year of the OX and Chinese Lantern Festival”, which was held by the Luohu International Block.

This event attracted the participation of foreign residents from Canada, Spain, Thailand, and other countries, as well as the local residents in the Xinwei community, overseas Chinese, and member units of the International Talent Service Alliance by the implications of Chinese traditional festival and culture.

During the event, Liu Yuan, a professor at Shenzhen Foreign language School who taught at the Confucius Institute at Bangor University in the UK, was invited as a guest speaker to the event. She guided the participants to learn about the Lantern Festival and its culture through various activities including appreciating the traditional singing and dancing, making lanterns, guessing the lantern riddles, and tasting the rice balls.

Making lanterns was one of the most highlighted and cheerful activities at the event. All the participants at the scene worked together to make the traditional lanterns through guidance from the tutor. Although the making process was a bit of complicated for amateurs, they were so excited to make lanterns by themselves. One of our foreign participants even said that he had heard of the Lantern Festival and had seen the beautiful lanterns on television. He felt wonderful to have a chance to experience all of these in person in such an authentic context of Lantern Festival.

In addition, Tian Xing and Mr. Wang Mengliang--the inheritors of non-material cultural heritage--were invited to demonstrate the traditional internal painting and paper-cutting in the event. The participants said they were impressed when Mr. Tian was magically cutting the paper into any shapes. Through Mr. Wang’s guidance, participants enjoyed the inner paintings and were impressed by the scenery, birds and animals, ancient and modern characters, plants and flowers that drawn in the wall of small bottles. This activity was so enjoyable that they can not help picking up the brush to try drawing themselves. They were all amazed and couldn't help picking up the paintbrush and trying it out.

By the end of the event, both local and foreign participants filmed a tutting video in order to send their best wishes of the Lantern Festival to all residents in Shenzhen.

This event was sponsored by the Luohu District Committee Office (Luohu District Foreign Affairs Bureau), and co-organized by the Luohu District Organization Department of Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC (Shenzhen Luohu District Personnel Bureau), and Guiyuan Sub-district Office of Shenzhen Luohu District. In addition to further creating a prosperous atmosphere for the Lantern Festival, the event promotes the cultural exchange and integration between China and foreign countries in Luohu. Luohu International block will conduct more events of traditional Chinese culture for both local and foreign residents in Luohu, and will constantly improve the quality of service and enhance the internationalization process in the Luohu district.