Bangladeshi folks, Chinese celebrate Lantern Festival

Bangladesh teachers and Chinese people celebrated the Lantern Festival together on Feb 5 in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital.

At the invitation of the Bangladesh department at China Media Group – the State media group based in Beijing – the teachers of the Confucius Institute at the University of Dhaka went to a CMG studio to record the customs of the Lantern Festival celebrations.

The Confucius Institute there cooperated with Yunnan University, or YNU – based in the city of Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province – to start operating in May 2016. Its courses are being taught by YNU Chinese teachers.

Yu Guangyue, director of CMG's Bangladesh department, participated in the event remotely.

During the activity, participants reflected on the meaning of the festival and experienced traditional customs like writing calligraphy, paper-cutting, guessing lantern riddles, singing Chinese songs and wrapping yuanxiao (sweet dumplings) – a traditional food for celebrating the Lantern Festival.  

The activity is said to have helped make Chinese teachers in foreign countries feel a growing kinship between China and Bangladesh. It also helped enrich the understanding of the Bangladeshi people of China's traditional festivals and its culture.

Program host Shanta Maria and Confucius Institute president Yang Hui said that in the new year they hoped to strengthen cooperation between Confucius Institutes in Bangladesh and CMG's Bangladesh department – and to promote the in-depth development of the language and cultural exchanges between the two countries.