Chinese Spring Festival in February
The Chinese Embassy in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Culture in Malawi will jointly hold the Chinese Spring Festival in February because the first day of the Lunar month is regarded as the New Year of the Chinese– the Spring Festival.
In Malawi, the Spring Festival gala will be held for two days with special performances.
The event will be on February 4th in Lilongwe at the Bingu International Conference Centre and on the 5th, it will be in Blantyre at Comesa Hall.
The festival is the most important and ceremonious traditional event in China, as is the case with the Christmas Day to Westerners.
During this period, people will pay a New Year call to one another from the first day, and it is not until the 15th day of the first lunar month, namely, the Lantern Festival, that the Spring Festival ends.
“A group of 30 artists from Huineng Province in China will be in the country for the festival.
“They will hold performances such as Kung Fu, acrobatics and dances. Last year, it was a hit with an arts group from Cheijin Province. We have already discussed this with the ministry, so
we will do this together,” said Chinese Ambassador to Malawi Pan Hejun.
“So our artists [Chinese] and artists from Malawi will perform on the same platform for people of the two nations to enjoy each other’s cultural aspects,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Embassy is working on establishing a Confucius Institute in Malawi in Lilongwe.
The institute will promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching, and facilitate cultural exchanges.
“We are working with the University of Malawi, which will be a host of this institute, but in Lilongwe.
The Confucius Institute will teach language so that people can acquire the Chinese language locally making it easier for them to study, do business and know more about China’s culture. By 2013, it will have been established,” explained Ambassador Hejun.
Currently, a Malawi delegation on culture travels to China irregularly under the cultural exchanges programme, but the establishment of the institute is poised to regularise such meetings and travels for people to understand each other more.
