GCI Chinese New Year Celebration in Groningen

Published on 20.02.2018

On February 16th, Groningen Confucius Institute (GCI) successfully held Chinese New Year celebration in Grand Theatre Groningen, with around 150 guests from various fields such as education, culture, business and government participating in this grand event.

The celebration was hosted by GCI Director Xuefei Knoester-Cao, who warmly welcomed all the guests and introduced some key elements in Chinese New Year such as “Spring Festival Gala (Chūnwǎn)” and “red envelop (hóngbāo)”.

Mrs. Xuefei Knoester-Cao, GCI Director, was hosting Chinese New Year celebration

Mr. René Paas, King's Commissioner in the province of Groningen, delivered the opening speech, in which he described that the Chinese Zodiac Dog (2018 is The Year of the Dog) is the symbol of loyalty and honesty and the two qualities are also the basis of the long-term relationship between China and the Netherlands.

Mr. René Paas, King's Commissioner in the Province of Groningen, was giving a speech

Mrs. Jingyi Liu, Chinese Director of GCI, expressed her gratitude to all of the partners for their precious cooperation and support, and shared with the guests a review of GCI in 2017 in the areas of Chinese language education, culture promotion and business communication.

Mrs. Jingyi Liu, Chinese director of GCI, was giving a speech

Mr. H.J. Pijlman, President of Hanze University of Applied Sciences, as well as a board member of GCI, acknowledged the achievements GCI has made over the last year, and also illustrated with examples how GCI together with Hanze have been jointly exploring opportunities in business, culture and education to achieve the goal of strengthening the relationship between China and the Netherlands.

Mr. H.J. Pijlman, President of Hanze University of Applied Sciences, was giving a speech

After the speeches, a series of Chinese cultural performances including Chinese songs Yearning and Kun, Chinese Instrument Ensemble Dance of the Golden Snake and Chinese Fan Dance Spring Chant were given by special guests Ingrid Fischer and Feng Gao, GCI teachers as well as students from Communication University of China.

Chinese Instrument Ensemble Dance of the Golden Snake co-performed by Jingfan Xie, GCI teacher, Yichi Zhang and Youjia Zheng, students from Communication University of China

Chinese Song Yearning co-performed by Ingrid Fischer, Feng Gao

Chinese Song Kun performed by Wei Jiang, GCI teacher

Chinese Fan Dance Spring Chant performed by Youjia Zheng, Min Liu, Yuanyuan Zhou, Yubo Zhang and Yixuan Yu, students from Communication University of China

The New Year celebration culminated with a reception, which provided a good networking opportunity for participants.

The guests were enjoying a great networking time in the reception