The Confucius Institute welcomes the Chinese New Year of the Wood Dragon

## The Confucius Institute welcomes the Chinese New Year of the Wood Dragon

Chinese New Year 2024 poster.

The Confucius Institute of the Universitat de València (CIUV) has programmed and organised cultural and festive activities and exhibitions to celebrate the arrival of the Chinese New Year 2024, which corresponds to year 4722 according to the traditional Chinese calendar. Workshops, talks, musical performances, calligraphy exhibitions and many more will be followed by the closing central acts at the Town Hall Square this Saturday, 3 February.

Between 11:00 and 17:30, activities will be held at the main stage, as well as at the many tents set on the space usually reserved for letting off the mascletàs. In the afternoon of this same Saturday, and from 18:00 onwards, the XI Great Chinese New Year Parade will take place. It will start at Pelayo street, advancing through Xàtiva, Marqués de Sotelo, and concluding at the aforementioned Town Hall Square.

This edition will be the 11th celebrated in our city, an initiative launched by the CIUV which start dates back to the year 2012. The current edition is organised by the Federation of Chinese Associations of the Valencian Community, jointly with the Valencia City Council and the Confucius Institute. In this great parade, the diverse folkloric and cultural Chinese groups that are present in Valencian society will march. Along the route, attendants will get the chance to witness exhibitions of tai chi and wushu, a full-contact combat sport derived from traditional disciplines which includes numerous acrobatics. Not forgetting ‘batuchina’ percussion groups, a mix of Brazilian rhythms and traditional Chinese music, composed by more than a hundred performers.

It goes without saying that the lion and the dragon dances will liven up the parade, filling with light and colour the streets of one of the areas with larger Chinese presence of Valencia. At arriving at the Town Hall square, the unique entourage will be welcomed by municipal authorities. During the development of these events, the CIUV will hand out traditional calendars, edited yearly in Chinese, Valencian, and Spanish. Also, for those who so desire, the Chinese versions of their names will be written in calligraphy by master calligraphers and instructors. Last year’s edition of this cultural day saw the attendance of more than 25,000 people who flooded the streets of the city centre throughout the day.

Regarding the activities organised by the CIUV, on Wednesday, 31 January the much-anticipated conference on tai chi given by Dr. Wang Xiaojun, (王晓军, 1968), an authority in the Tai Chi Chuan’s Chen traditional style will take place. He belongs to the 4th generation of Beijing’s Chen style line and is a PhD in Physical Education, specialising in wushu (Chinese Martial Arts), in Beijing Sport University. The conference will be available on-site, as well as through the official YouTube channel @ConfucioValencia.

During the rest of February, at the Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication (Blasco Ibáñez, 32), a variety of conferences on the Chinese New Year in the novel *Dream of the Red Chamber* (Thursday, 1), the traditions of the Spring Festival (Tuesday, 6) and the influence of the dragon in Chinese culture (Thursday, 15) will be held. Children’s workshops will revolve around handicrafts with dragons (Wednesday 7) and the Lantern Festival (Thursday, 22), which brings the celebrations to an end.

This year 4722 starts Saturday, 10 February 2024 and ends Tuesday, 28 January 2025. The corresponding animal from the Chinese zodiac is the Wood Dragon, the fifth of the series of animals which composes it in the following order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. In the Gregorian calendar, the start of the Spring Festival, name the New Year receives in China, corresponds to the period from 21, January to 19, February, that is, the duration of a lunar cycle. Its beginning is marked by the second new moon after winter solstice. According to the traditional calendar, the year 2024 will correspond to the year 4722. This number comes from the start of the reign of Huangdi, the mythical Yellow Emperor, in the year 2698 BCE. If we add the current 2024 year to this date, we obtain the celebrated 4722.

The CIUV began its journey at the Universitat de València in November 2007 and has as its counterpart centre in China the Northeast Normal University, based in Changchun, the capital city of the province of Jilin. The CIUV has earned the consideration of ‘Exemplary Confucius Institute’ by the central headquarters, has earned a variety of awards and mentions, among which stand out the 9 d’Octubre Distinction to Cultural Merit of the Generalitat in 2017 and being one of the top 20 Confucius Institutes of that same year, among the 548 total that exist. It is also responsible for the Reading Club (confuciomag.com), an initiative with more than 30,000 followers on main social media platforms.

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