The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival and Lunar New Year, is the most important festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar.
The celebrations are best known for food, fireworks and family reunion.
There is a zodiac, or animal representation, attributed to each year in a 12-year cycle and this year starting February 16 is the Year of the Dog, which symbolizes “wealth.”
On the eve of the New Year, there is a TV show that epitomizes this very important Chinese holiday, the Spring Festival Gala which is shown on China Central Television network (CCTV).
This year’s program will run for about four hours on Thursday February 15 night.
A day before the Spring Gala Festival, Kenyans working for Chinese firms joined their colleagues from the Asian nation to celebrate the Spring Festival on Valentine’s Day.
“I was in China during the Spring Festivals held in the last two years and am glad to celebrate the event in my home soil. It is my hope that the celebrations here in Kenya will be exceptional,” Alice Mugure, an employee at the Nairobi-Mombasa Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) remarked.
Ten other employees from the Nairobi-Mombasa SGR are also in Beijing to witness live the Spring Festival Gala and also participate in the opusculum. They had the chance of being at the backstage where the gala is being held.
They share their Happy New Year greetings to all the Chinese people.
Songs, dance routines and comedy acts spotlighting China’s provinces and various ethnic groups will be showcased during this gala. Spots about Chinese national heroes and key government projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative will also feature.
The CCTV Spring Festival Gala was live broadcast via television on February 12, 1983 and has been a national tradition since then.
The show is the globe’s “Most Watched National Network TV Broadcast” according to Guinness World Records in 2012 garnering a unique viewership of 498.7 million. This by far beat US’ most-watched show in 2018, the NFL Super Bowl which had 103.4 million viewers, according to NBC. In 2015, the Year of the Sheep, the audience figures reached 690 million viewers.
Producers of the gala have tried attracting the younger viewers by adding acts like pop band TFboys to a lineup that traditionally features plenty of Chinese opera.
Chinese families always gather to watch the TV gala after their reunion dinner on Chinese New Year’s Eve.
The gala show is used to reflect the best part of Chinese arts and culture and a perfect way to o promote inherited culture and tradition.
