The Lantern Festival, the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar, falls on February 24 this year. The 2024 Shantou Small Park International Lantern Fair kicked off on this day.
Residents, tourists, officials, and returned overseas Chinese enjoyed the lantern show and local traditional celebration activities, including dragon dance, Yingge Dance, and so on.
"This is my first time in Shantou, and I'm very excited to be here. I think the sheer number of lanterns in one place, the whole architecture of this area is very impressive and very welcoming for tourists," said Suraya Binti Ahmad Pauzi, Consul General of Malaysia in Guangzhou.
Theme streets with landmark buildings and characteristic products from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the United Arab Emirates were also displayed at the lantern fair. Shantou has long been known as a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, and these five countries are the main settlements of overseas Chinese from Chaoshan.
On the Malaysia street, 50 lanterns were set there to mark every year of the diplomatic bilateral relations between China and Malaysia.
In May, China and Malaysia will celebrate 50 years of diplomatic bilateral relations.
"For southern China, there is significance because of the very close ties between Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity. Many of them can trace back their roots to Guangdong," said the Consul General.
She added, "We have many trade and investment programs, education programs, tourism programs. So I think this is something that we just continue, and maybe we increase in number."
Reporter | Hannah
Video | Jimmy
Editor | Nan, Ou Xiaoming, Abby, James
