The New Year flavor of “Dragon Dragon” is full of cultural flavor, Splendid Chinese New Year | This Spring Festival

In 2024, the Year of the Dragon, all parts of the country are filled with a festive and peaceful festival atmosphere. In addition to celebrating the Chinese New Year at home, people also rush to historical cities and cultural venues. This Dragon-flavored Spring Festival is soaked in a strong cultural flavor.

"Dong, dong, dong", after the crisp drum beat, two 18-meter-long swimming dragons danced on the Guangji Bridge in Chaozhou, Guangdong to celebrate the New Year. This is one of the activities of "Celebrating the New Year in the Ancient City - Chaozhou Fun in the Ancient City" held on the first day of the Lunar New Year, and it also kicks off Chaozhou's "New Year's flavor" model.

There are intangible cultural heritage performances and markets such as Kungfu tea art, hand-pulled pots, and embroidery, folk performances such as dragon and lion dances, and English singing and dancing, lantern parades and exhibitions... During the Spring Festival, Chaozhou is full of attractions, delicious food, and folk customs. Intermittent cultural feasts allow citizens and tourists to taste the cultural flavor of the New Year.

During this Spring Festival, five places, including Chaozhou in Guangdong, Zhengding in Hebei, and Yulin in Shaanxi, launched the “Celebrating New Year in Ancient Cities” activities, attracting tourists from all over the world to experience the intertwining of tradition and culture.

On the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year, tourists flocked to Yulin Ancient City to feel the flavor of the New Year. Photo courtesy of Yuyang District Media Center, Yulin City

At night, the lanterns are lit up, and the ancient cities of Yulin and Zhengding are full of lights. Some tourists wore Hanfu and visited it, which was like a "travel" journey between ancient and modern times.

Intangible cultural heritage performances with a strong northern Shaanxi style have been staged in the ancient city of Yulin: Yulin ditties that combine the simplicity and weight of the north with the gentle and melodious music of the south have attracted local people to stop and sing in chorus; storytellers from northern Shaanxi embrace the three-stringed instrument and use popular lyrics and passionate songs. The tunes offered New Year blessings; the lingering opera performances immersed the audience in the charm of the quintessence of Chinese art... The rich activities filled the ancient city with a sense of the Spring Festival atmosphere.

"The old street is decorated with festive lanterns, and there are unique folk customs and intangible cultural heritage performances around the six buildings, which is full of New Year flavor." Tourist Liu Haotian said.

Zhengding Ancient City has launched a series of activities called "Celebrating the Year of the Dragon with Thousands of Lanterns Painting the Ancient City". Changshan Zhaozilong, giant dragons and phoenixes, iconic ancient buildings and other lanterns of various shapes allow visitors to appreciate Zhengding's profound cultural heritage of "nine dynasties without interruption".

Liu Weina, deputy director of Zhengding County Culture, Radio, Television, Sports and Tourism Bureau, said that the lantern festival will integrate Zhengding ancient city culture with traditional cultural elements to show tourists the festival culture, ancient city history, blessing culture, etc. In addition, activities such as the Spring Festival Painting Exhibition in the Museum and the New Year Customs Parade in the Ancient City have been launched to allow tourists to explore the flavor of the New Year in Zhengding.

Tourists enjoy lanterns at the south gate of Zhengding Ancient City in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province on February 3. Photo by reporter Mou Yu

In the theme activity of "Our Festival·Spring Festival", various places convey the warmth of the New Year through different cultural activities.

In Langzhong, Sichuan, there is a saying that "it is not a Chinese New Year without beating the Baxiang drum". On February 10, on Wumiao Street in the ancient city of Langzhong, several "Ba people" wearing animal skins held long-handled animal skin drums. While beating, they continued to change formations, supplemented by sonorous shouts of "Hey!" The sound is touching and inspiring.

With a long history of more than 2,300 years, Langzhong Ancient City is a famous historical and cultural city in China and the hometown of Chinese Spring Festival culture. Cow lanterns, bamboo horses, burning flowers and dragon dances, spring herds "talking about spring"... the Spring Festival activities are wonderful, the ancient city is bustling with people, and Langzhong has become a grand garden of Chinese Spring Festival culture.

In Shenzhen, the flavor of the New Year in the city is equally strong. At the Shenzhen branch of "New Life·New Fashion·New Year Paintings" - Our Well-off Life Art Exhibition, more than 200 pieces of woodblock New Year paintings, folk paintings, peasant paintings, etc. presented an art exhibition full of New Year flavor. In addition, interactive and interesting traditional games such as pyrography experience, paper-cutting, and pot throwing attracted citizens and tourists to come and enjoy the New Year paintings to celebrate the New Year.

The taste of the year continues, and the culture spreads thousands of miles. During this Spring Festival, in addition to experiencing the rich New Year cultural activities in person, the strong flavor of the New Year is also spread to all corners of the world through live broadcasts, radios, new media and other means.

"The dragon is coming!" On February 10, in Jiangdu District, Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, a vivid and exquisitely crafted "golden dragon" followed the hydrangea and performed unique skills such as "Chinese Dragon Dance" and "Lotus Dragon Dance" from time to time, showing off its spirit. God - this is the Dinghuo Dragon Dance, a Jiangsu provincial intangible cultural heritage project.

The audience at the scene can watch it up close, and out-of-town tourists or interested friends can also enjoy the "eye addiction" through live broadcast. "Culture Enters Thousands of Families - Live Video Broadcast of Hometown New Year", a New Year's "custom feast", brings together a variety of local ornamental activities in Yangzhou. Across the screen, the authentic nostalgia of the New Year hits our faces.

Miao Qin, director of the Public Culture and Tourism Services Department of the Yangzhou Municipal Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, introduced that counties and cities in Yangzhou use short videos to collectively broadcast or live online to let everyone know about local New Year customs and intangible cultural heritage items, and enhance their awareness of "New Year culture" Interest and attention, let intangible cultural heritage accompany everyone to celebrate the New Year.

At the "Culture Enters Ten Thousand Households - Live Video Broadcast Hometown Year" event in Changsha, Hunan, representative intangible cultural heritage projects from all over the country gathered together, including fish lantern dance, bamboo horse dance, flower drum opera, stilt walking and other performances with southern and northern charms, and robot dogs. Exciting programs such as technological and traditional dance battles with lion dances are also shared "on the cloud". Many self-media experts have carried out live broadcast activities to present the customs, culture and characteristic intangible cultural heritage of their hometowns to the people across the country, allowing the masses to experience the festive and peaceful Spring Festival atmosphere "in the cloud".

"Listener friends, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon in Jiachen. In traditional Chinese culture, the image of the dragon not only represents strength, but also symbolizes good luck, prosperity, and harmony..." On the first day of the new year, "Our Festival - Classic The Spring Festival program "Recitation Show" has been spread all over the country through multiple provincial broadcast frequencies and new media accounts across the country, telling the Spring Festival culture in classics.

During the Spring Festival, the event will showcase more than 20 classic works, invite famous domestic broadcasters to recite them, and invite cultural experts to interpret the connotation of the festival and talk about the inheritance and evolution of festival customs. "We hope to create a strong atmosphere of reciting classics and inheriting culture, and we also hope that listeners can draw inspiration from it." said Hu Yinfang, secretary-general of the Audio Reading Committee of the China Broadcasting Federation.