US students celebrate Lunar New Year with scroll inspired by ancient Chinese painting

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of students here Friday celebrated the Chinese New Year by painting a 40-foot (12-meter) scroll depicting the landmarks of the city's five boroughs, inspired by an ancient Chinese painting.

The art project, in which over 400 students have participated, was done during a special event honoring the Year of the Dog held in the lobby of David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center.

The students from the city's five boroughs -- Staten Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Queens and Bronx, painted scenes from their own life in New York, such as schools, streets and pets, onto the giant scroll.

The project was inspired by the Chinese painting "Along the River During the Qingming Festival," also known by its Chinese name as the "Qingming Shanghe Tu," a masterpiece that depicts the lives of people along the Bian River during the Song Dynasty over 800 years ago.

It is one of the highlights of the event for the Lunar New Year hosted by the U.S.-China Cultural Institute and its local and Chinese partners.

"The purpose of the event is to let young people understand why they get a vacation on the Lunar New Year, and provides them with a window into Chinese culture," Shirley Young, chair of the U.S.-China Cultural Institute, told Xinhua. "It builds on New York's inclusiveness and cultural diversity."

New York is one of the few cities in the United States where the Chinese New Year is a public holiday. Over one million public school students in the city have been observing it since 2016.

Musicians and young composers from the New York Philharmonic joined Friday's celebration along with a show from Lang Lang International Music Foundation's Young Scholar Program, an exhibition of 150 artworks selected from 40,000 child participants by China's Central Academy of Fine Arts, and other performances.