Encouraging a festival atmosphere

In celebration of the upcoming Year of the Rabbit, the event's organizing committee called upon designers for their ideas for this year's mascot and merchandise. More than 1,000 designers from some 60 design colleges and companies submitted 5,918 entries. The winning mascot is a cute rabbit character, and the merchandise piece is a shoulder purse inspired by Spring Festival gift bags. Both were designed by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and aim to merge cultural heritage with modern fashion, and ritual with practicality.

The China International Culture Association also opened up a social media account to present videos about the events and act as an online cultural exchange for global viewers. Social media influencers are invited to promote traditional Spring Festival products and showcase modern Chinese lifestyles, and an online campaign will be launched to collect stories, pictures and videos about the reunion dinner on Lunar New Year's Eve.

"We will continue to uphold a cultural viewpoint of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and cultural inclusiveness, and share China's major festivities and Chinese cultural symbols with the world," Gao said.

"By offering more quality public cultural products to the world, we hope to replace estrangement with exchange, clashes with mutual learning, and superiority with coexistence, as well as continuously contribute to a community with a shared future."