On February 10 (local time), the “Germany meets Qingdao – Together at the Spring Festival”, which was initiated by the Information Office of the Qingdao Municipal People’s Government, organized by CICG Academy of Translation and Interpretation, and co-organized by Regensburger Verein für Deutsch-Chinesische Freundschaft und Kulturaustausch, was held in the partner city Regensburg. The purpose of this event is to give the German people an opportunity to better understand Chinese cultures in connection with the Spring Festival and Qingdao, to perceive Qingdao and to expand the influence of Qingdao in the German partner city.
The participating guests of honor experienced Chinese calligraphy before the event, using the brush pen to write the Chinese character for blessing “福” to express their good wishes for the Year of the Loong and to send Chinese New Year wishes in Chinese to the citizens of their partner city and to wish everyone a happy new year and much success.
The participating guests of honor watched the short video “Spring Festival” together. Through the short video, the participating guests of honor got to know the traditional customs of the Chinese spring festival: sacrificing the god of cooking, buying New Year’s goods, writing spring festival couplets, putting up posters with blessings, sending red envelopes and so on.
Participating guests of honor also watched the video of “City Landscape of China’s Qingdao”. They had gained a preliminary understanding of the history, culture, economy and other areas of Qingdao through the video, enjoyed Qingdao’s beautiful landscape with red bricks and green trees, the blue sea and sky as well as the unique charm of the modern international metropolis.
The event also distributed promotional materials carefully prepared by the city of Qingdao, which deepened the guests’ intuitive understanding of Qingdao through materials such as Qingdao postcards, Qingdao post-it notes, and Qingdao landscape stamps.