The traditional Chinese Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) celebrations are gaining international popularity, so much so that some experts are calling for a cultural branding of the festival.

On the Lunar New Year's Day, tens of thousands in London joined in the Spring Festival celebrations in China Town and Trafalgar Square. Many wore Chinese traditional dress and exchanged greetings in the traditional way, with hands clasped in front.

This year's Chinese culture celebrations are the biggest held in London, according to the city's mayor Ken Livingstone. It began with the switching on of specially designed Chinese lanterns at Oxford Circus on January 26 and the event will run until the end of March, featuring more than 100 activities across the British capital.

The Spring Festival is so widely celebrated nowadays that it has even been declared a national holiday in New York City. In 2004 the metropolis lifted the ban on firecrackers. On January 29, 500,000 crackers were set off and all 1,327 lights on the top of the Empire State Building lit up in red and gold, the traditional festival colors.

Experts say that it is not only the custom, but the cultural meaning, spiritual values and psychological effects of the Spring Festival that are attractive to foreigners.

According to Professor Gao Tianxing from Zhengzhou University, Spring Festival customs embody kindness, love and care -- all elements that can help ease the pressures of a fast-paced world and lifestyle.

Liu Kuili, vice chairman of the executive council of China Folklore Society, adds that specific practices including visiting the elders, ancestor worship and presenting gifts of money to children show the Chinese people's respect for nature, tradition, harmony and order.
 
At the heart of the Spring Festival is the "he" culture, the Chinese word for harmony. In a speech delivered at the école Polytechnique in Paris on December 6, 2005, Premier Wen Jiabao explained the he culture as follows: "The Chinese word 'he' means peace among states, good neighborliness among individuals, and harmony between humanity and nature."

Because of its significance and growing popularity, experts have suggested that the Spring Festival has the potential to be named a world festival.

But the cultural branding exercise will require much effort.

In November 2005, the UNESCO accepted South Korea's application to list the Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.

The Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival has its roots in the Chinese Duanwu Festival or Dragon Boat Festival that came about almost 2,500 years ago. The tradition made its way to neighboring countries and was localized over the years. South Korea's successful UNESCO bid has prompted China to devise ways of protecting its various traditional cultural festivals. 

If the Spring Festival, in particular, is to be developed into a cultural brand, its folk customs need to be rediscovered, identified and protected.

On December 31, 2005, the Ministry of Culture made public its first list of nominees for intangible cultural heritage status including the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival (paying homage to the dead), Duanwu Festival, Double Seventh Festival (China's equivalent of St. Valentine's Day), Mid-Autumn Festival, and Double Ninth Festival (Senior Citizens' Festival).

(Xinhua Daily Telegraph, translated by Li Shen for China.org.cn, February 9, 2006)