Foreign and Chinese workers gather to celebrate Spring Festival

Several of my fellow foreign China Daily colleagues and I recently had the privilege of attending a tea party held to mark the Spring Festival holiday and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Foreign experts from various organizations in the nation's capital gathered to hear speeches and enjoy performances from around the country. We attended the event at the local venue, the Foreign Experts Building Hotel, while other foreign workers participated via livestream from Shandong, Hubei, Sichuan and Fujian provinces.

The event, co-hosted by Singaporean Gasthoori Manickam from China Global Television Network and Sun Lingtong from the Chinese Association for International Exchange of Personnel, was organized by the CAIEP along with its branch affiliates in Beijing, Chengdu, Sichuan province, and Fujian, Shandong and Hubei provinces.

After scanning our health codes and signing in, we were directed to our respective tables. There were several Chinese workers from the Ministry of Science and Technology at my table, along with a man from South Africa and another from Morocco, both of whom were teachers.

We chatted a bit and enjoyed some fruit, water and tea as we waited for the event to begin. It didn't take long before Li Meng, vice-minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, who was scheduled to give the opening speech, arrived to applause and walked around the room to shake hands with all the attendees, including me.

The audience was treated to a promotional video of the Winter Games, depicting the devotion Chinese athletes are showing to their respective sports－skiing, skating, curling, etc.－as they prepare for the most important event in their careers.

Then Li, who also leads the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs, took to the stage, where he shared his good wishes for the people of China and those around the world ahead of Spring Festival, the nation's most significant holiday, as well as for the athletes taking part in the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

His words were echoed by other speakers, which included two Olympic medalists: retired speed skater Yang Yang, the first Chinese athlete to ever net gold at the Winter Games when she won in Salt Lake City in 2002; and speed skater Zhang Hong, who took the top prize in the 1,000m competition at Sochi 2014. Both Yang and Zhang delivered their speeches via video.

The event, which was held on Jan 14, also featured performances from foreign experts from around the country. Among the participants were Mark Levine, a professor at Minzu University of China from California, who played an original song honoring Olympic volunteer workers; and Lute Berend Brommer, a Dutch member of the Hubei Philharmonic, who performed a riveting song on his guqin called Flowing Water.

At the conclusion of the performances, we were all invited to take part in a buffet and mingle. It was there that I had the chance to chat with fellow attendees while munching on sushi, roast chicken, veggies and other foods. It was nice to engage in conversation with other expats, trading stories about life in China and our adventures overseas before the pandemic. A large group of us even went out together to a bar afterward for a few drinks.

I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the tea party and make new friends in the process. It reminded me that, although we're all still feeling the weight of the pandemic in our lives, we still need to take the time to appreciate moments of joy when we can.