The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, has long been treasured as one of the grandest celebrations in Chinese culture. The year of 2020 marks the Year of the Rat, and this year, the CCTV youth channel has launched its seven-episode special program Let's Celebrate the Spring Festival from Saturday.

With a spotlight on traditional culture, it invites children to learn and experience through interesting games, sitcoms, contests and classes.

Zhang Jiaxuan, a 9-year-old living in Hong Kong, is among the first group of young guests on the show who come from Hong Kong and Macao. His interest in Chinese calligraphy blossomed in an early age, inspired by his parents. So the calligraphy game on set turned out to be his favorite.

Huang Jiayu, a 12-year-old girl from Macao, also developed a passion for calligraphy. "It requires a lot of patience. You need to be very dedicated to succeed."

Li Linfei, a 6-year-old from Beijing, shared his experience in his first program recording. "As the 'conductor' of the train, my job is to lead the team through the Wild Animal World, and give out the assignments," he said. As he was looking for oracle bone inscriptions, he learned quite a lot about this ancient cultural form.

Imbuing liveliness into education, the seven episodes cover a mixture of fields, varying from Chinese idioms, cuisine and martial arts to the animal zodiac and temple fairs.

For instance, in the Chinese idiom solitaire contest, four children form a team using ink bushes to write down Chinese idioms according to the rules.

As a tradition of the Let's Celebrate the Spring Festival program, every year the Animation Week will be launched with two new productions for young viewers, and will also feature timeless choices such as Big-head Son and Small-head Dad and Cotton Candy and Mother Cloud.

"We'd like to portray a Chinese style of animation," said Xu Beibei, chief director of the show. "Ink painting, paper-cutting and shadow puppetry will all be incorporated into the animations. The goal is to reveal the fun and charm of Chinese New Year."

In response to the latest media demands, the program will leap beyond traditional TV episodes, producing audio content, short videos and celebrity vlogs. Audiences have expressed great enthusiasm and curiosity about the show since last December. Many posted merry family photos for the production team — memories of pasting Spring Festival couplets on the door, making dumplings and having family reunion dinners.

(Source: chinadaily.com.cn)