As the first Chinese festival to be recognized as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, the Dragon Boat Festival is attracting more and more attention around the world. To mark the occasion, China Media Group (CMG) Middle East held a special Dragon Boat Festival event in Dubai from Saturday to Monday to promote traditional Chinese culture and invite tourists to join in the celebrations.
The Chinatown section of Dubai Mall, the world's largest shopping mall, hosted the "Experience Dragon Boat Festival Culture" event. The event featured traditional crafts such as calligraphy, sachet making, paper cutting and dragon boat lantern making.
A family shows off bookmarks bearing their Chinese names. /CMG
A stall displaying paper cuttings was crowded with tourists. Jin Li, an inheritor of the Chinese intangible cultural heritage of paper cutting, was demonstrating her skill in bringing vivid scenes to life with just a pair of scissors and a sheet of paper.
"I was really impressed by the paper cutting on that side where there are no drawings, there are no lines and it takes a piece of paper and just cut through it," South African tourist Preggy Naidoo told a CGTN reporter.
A paper-cutting work by Jin Li /CMG
The event displayed cultural and creative products, including zongzi gift boxes, dragon plates, and CMG building blocks. It also featured CMG programs in Arabic and English on a large screen to promote cultural exchanges between China and the UAE. This blend of tradition and innovation brought a unique experience to visitors from various countries at the Dubai Mall.
China Media Group gift boxes featuring zongzi are seen on display. /CMG
The event marked another showcase of CMG's cultural and creative products following a special exhibition during this year's Spring Festival at Dubai Mall, the world's most visited retail and lifestyle destination with a record 105 million visitors last year.