Editor's notes:

“Of all the festivals, the Lunar New Year comes first”, or so the ancient Chinese saying goes. As the grandest of the Chinese traditional festivals and the start of the Lunar New Year in China, Spring Festival is a time for gathering with family and the carrying out of ancient customs, bringing not only an air of ceremony to the festive period, but also hope and blessings for the year ahead. To celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit, Hainan International Media Center (HIMC) has produced “Chinese New Year in Hainan”, a series of bilingual programs that sees HIMC’s overseas communications officers traveling to different parts of Hainan to experience local festival traditions, try local festival flavors and immerse themselves in the local festival atmosphere.

For Chinese New Year, Jim, an Overseas Communications Officer for HIMC, headed on down to Ocean Flower Island in Danzhou－a major urban and industrial hub in southern China’s Hainan Province－to soak up the festive atmosphere at the Chinese New Year temple fair. At the fair, Jimmy got to enjoy Danzhou Diaosheng, a kind of folk song and dance unique to the area. Diaosheng, referred to as “an exotic curio of south China’s performing arts tradition”, has been inscribed on China’s national-level intangible heritage list. Let’s follow Jimmy into the Chinese New Year fair to experience the magic and witness the charm of Danzhou Diaosheng.