A truly global celebration

陈小将

It's official: China's Spring Festival belongs to the world. The country and planet are poised to welcome the Year of the Snake, weeks after UNESCO inscribed "Spring Festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of their traditional new year", on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

"It's not just about Chinese people. It's for everyone," says Communication University of China's dean of the School of International Studies Wen Chunying.

"It's not just in China. It's all over the world. We celebrate the coming of the new year with people all over the world. We celebrate a new beginning and embrace the joy of life and sharing fun."

The professor and Fulbright scholar recently joined an Embracing Cultures salon organized by China Daily. She explored Spring Festival's meaning in today's world with US citizen David Moser, associate professor at Beijing's Capital Normal University; Russian Kirill Kravtsov, a postgraduate student from the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University in Beijing; and two China Daily co-hosts.