CELEBRATIONS FOSTER CROSS-CULTURAL CONNECTIONS

Across continents, Spring Festival celebrations are becoming meaningful platforms for cultural exchanges, bringing Chinese traditions into dialogue with local customs and creating shared festive experiences across borders.

On Tanzania's Zanzibar, an island in the Indian Ocean known as the "Spice Island," Spring Festival festivities took on a unique local flavor. On Chinese New Year's Eve, Wang Wenming, a Chinese tourist born in the 1990s, and his fiancee spent the festival at a seaside restaurant on the northern part of the island.

As the waves lapped against nearby rocks, a restaurant staff member, learning that the couple was celebrating the Chinese New Year, played the Chinese folk song Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower). The melody echoed across the terrace, drawing smiles and toasts from diners of different nationalities.

Wang said he was delighted to see locals becoming more familiar with Chinese traditional festivals.

"Through these exchanges, I introduced some Chinese cultural customs to local people, and the sense of fulfillment from this kind of interaction goes beyond simple tourism," he said.