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CMG Spring Festival Gala features over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage

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      China

      China

      CMG Spring Festival Gala features over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage

      2025-01-29 19:44 Last Updated At:20:07

      The 2025 Spring Festival Gala hosted and aired by the China Media Group (CMG) featured over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), fully showcasing a rich and enduring cultural legacy of the country.

      Themed "Year of the Snake, Keep Your Spirit Awake," the hours-long television show featured a dazzling array of singing and dancing, opera, comedy sketches, martial arts and other performances, offering an audiovisual feast to viewers tuning in from around the world.

      The Spring Festival Gala this year started off with elements of intangible cultural heritage. The opening performances matched Wuxing, also known as Five Elements, showcasing the ancient wisdom and profound cultural heritage of the country.

      The five elements theory is widely considered as one of the most influential philosophical theories of China, which is used to describe interactions and relationships between things.

      The five elements - metal, wood, water, fire and earth - are believed to be the fundamental elements of everything in the universe between which all kinds of interactions could occur.

      Furthermore, the West Lake silk umbrella, as the significant props for performance used in the skit "Borrowing an Umbrella" inspired by an ancient Chinese folklore, were crafted by national-level intangible cultural heritage inheritors.

      The silk umbrella, a specialty product of Hangzhou City in China, uses bamboo as the bone and silk as the surface. The umbrella is a prime example, showcasing elegance and precision.

      "For example, the skit 'Borrowing an Umbrella'. The umbrella is a significant prop, and we treated it as a key exhibit of intangible cultural heritage. So, we found an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Hangzhou City's West Lake. He specializes in making West Lake silk umbrella," said Zhou Yuchen, head of the short story team, the 2025 Spring Festival Gala.

      The creative show Pillars and Beams drew inspiration from the Beijing Central Axis which has been added by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to its World Heritage List in 2024.

      With stunning visual effects, the song, which was performed by Chinese pop music duo Phoenix Legend, took the audience on a journey to appreciate the enduring Chinese aesthetics of the resplendent pavilions and towers, showcasing the ingenious design and cultural depth behind Chinese ancient architecture.

      In addition, the country's much celebrated intangible cultural heritage Yingge dance was performed at the gala, embodying the brave and vigorous spirit of the Chinese people.

      Originating in the Chaoshan area in south China's Guangdong Province, the Yingge dance is renowned for its martial arts moves, with dramatic leaps, turns and jumps all contributing to its charm.

      China takes pride in its profound cultural heritage, where calligraphy and martial arts stand as timeless symbols of its artistic and philosophical depth.

      During the Spring Festival Gala, "The Pen Writes the Dragon and Snake" brings these two traditions together in a mesmerizing performance. Inspired by Li Bai's poem "A Ballad of Cursive Script," the energetic martial arts performance celebrates the fluid beauty of calligraphy, likening its strokes to the movements of a dragon and a snake. The show opened with martial artist Donnie Yen appreciating a piece of cursive script, setting the stage for a stunning fusion of martial arts and calligraphy. A rotating table transforms into an ink stone while a Taichi performer embodies the ink, their movements reflecting the grace and dynamism of cursive writing.

      The gala, also known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, was first broadcast back in 1983 and is seen as a major cultural symbol for the traditional Spring Festival celebrations in China.

      The Spring Festival, or the start of a Chinese New Year, fell on Wednesday this year, ushering in the Year of the Snake.

      CMG Spring Festival Gala features over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage

      CMG Spring Festival Gala features over 100 elements of intangible cultural heritage

      Next Article

      CATL's German battery plant powers up local green transition

      2025-02-18 22:36 Last Updated At:23:07

      ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A new plant set up by China's leading battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL) in Germany to produce batteries for electric vehicles has brought significant economic and environmental benefits to the country and beyond. 

      Germany has long been a pivotal force in the global car industry, renowned as the birthplace of the automobile. With the drive towards greener mobility, it wants more manufacturers to build factories and advance domestic electric vehicle production.

      CATL, headquartered in the city of Ningde, east China's Fujian Province, started to build its first overseas base in 2018 in the German state of Thüringen.

      "The battery making business is something you do very close with your customers. It's an eye to eye thing. And its important to have the short supply chains in the long term. We have had our first cooperation here in Germany starting in 2012. And then we decided to come here and start producing batteries in Germany and Europe in 2018," said Caspar Spinnen, public relations manager for CATL Germany.

      This localized production offers multiple advantages. With batteries representing around 40 percent of an electric vehicle's price, local manufacturing reduces expenses and minimizes transport emissions. Importantly, it also creates jobs and fosters knowledge transfer.

      "We are bringing a lot of new know-how here into the region. Battery manufacturing is still quite a new subject in Europe and that also comes with some added benefits.  We are also helping train people on the ground for future generations of battery production here on site," Spinnen said. 

      This investment aligns with the EU's ambitious climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030.

      But with not enough European battery producers to satisfy demand, Germany and other EU countries appear open to Chinese investment.

      The plant aims to build hundreds of thousands of batteries for electric vehicles across the continent and beyond, to power the European Union's growing EV industry. 

      CATL's German battery plant powers up local green transition

      CATL's German battery plant powers up local green transition

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