The Chinese New Year is commemorated around the globe through different cultural celebrations. (Photo : Getty Images)
Approximately 50,000 spectators in Helsinki, Finland, got a taste of Chinese culture in celebration of the Chinese New Year.
As the Year of the Rooster was celebrated Friday night, local Finns took part in the Temple Fair, which featured intangible culture heritages including "paper cutting, straw plaiting, Dragon-phoenix calligraphy and Taiping drum dance," Xinhua News Agency enumerated in its report.
One of the highlights of the occasion was the Taiping drum dance, receiving a warm applause from the enthusiastic crowd.
The commemoration of the 2017 Chinese New Year also comes with a festive revelry of the thousand-year-old Chinese folk art where performers donning vibrant attires conquered the stage with their lively dance numbers.
Not only did the Finnish crowd enjoy the celebration, the Chinese artists who took part in the event also savored their stay in the country.
Zhuo Mo, a member of the Jingxi Taiping Drum Folk Art Troupe, told Xinhua about her experience.
"We hope that the jubilant Taiping dram dance could bring festive atmosphere to the sparsely populated country," the first-timer in Finland said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director Yu Longjiang of the Beijing Shuimo Nianhua Painting and Calligraphy Studio led in showing some of the intangible cultural heritages of China before the Helsinki locals.
A practitioner of the dragon-phoenix calligraphy for 20 years now, Yu recounted how he learned about this art form.
"I started to learn the art when I was 20 years old. I met my master by accident at that time. I fell in love with the art when I first observed it," Yu said, adding that they are looking for apprentices, and maybe young people who would like to learn the art.
Annually, the Chinese New Year is culminated in the area in different means, according to Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen.
"Because this is a Chinese New Year, the program must be with Chinese heritage about Chinese tradition," Pajunen explained.
