The Chinese New Year began on 27 January and every year the URV joins in the festivities thanks to the large number of Chinese students who study here. This year the activities on the Catalunya Campus are extended into the afternoon and are also spread to other parts of the city from 26 January to 3 February

The Chinese New Year was on 27 January and is one of the most anticipated days of the year for the inhabitants of China. This year the real protagonist will be the rooster, the red fire rooster to be exact. In this, the URV’s 25th anniversary year, the activities on campus on 1 February will extend into the afternoon and will also spread to other parts of the city. Everybody is invited to come and join in.

Among the activities will be the Week of Chinese Culture, which started on Thursday 26 January and concludes on 3 February. It includes talks about Chinese culture, the Chinese tea ceremony, and Chinese etiquette and social customs. There is also theatre, various workshops and storytelling. On 27 January the City Council’s Espai Jove Kesse will held free workshops for children and adolescents.

The festivities at the Catalunya Campus will take place on 1 and 2 February. On the first day, from 11.00 to 14.00 and from 16.30 to 19.30 there will be activities, performances and talks. There will be workshops, sporting activities, games, a bar serving Chinese drinks, the Lantern Festival and riddles. There will be performances with traditional instruments such as the guzheng, the hulusi and the pipa, and other performances such as the Lion Dance, Chinese shadow puppetry, Tai-Chi, and human towers by the Pataquers URV team. Professor Huang Yi from the Confucian Institute of Barcelona will give the talks on Chinese culture and the tea ceremony on 1 February, and José Luis Herce, visiting professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, will give a talk entitled “China, from underdeveloped state to super power” on 2 February. The Chinese Space will be inaugurated in the URV’s CRAI on the first day and will be packed with resources on Chinese language and culture thanks to a generous donation from the Confucian Institute of Barcelona.

The activities are being organised by the URV’s Centre for Hispanic Studies and the Tarragona Association of Chinese Students and Researchers, which was founded at the University by Chinese teacher Zhu Rongrong, with the help of the Lifelong Learning Centre of the URV Foundation. Other collaborators have been the Confucian Institute of Barcelona, Tarragona Public Library and Tarragona Jove. The activities on 1 and 2 February are also supported by the Council of Students, Esports URV and the Pataquers URV human tower building team.