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UN celebrates Chinese Language Day with folk songs, exhibitions

Xinhua, April 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations marked the sixth Chinese Language Day here Monday with a series of special activities in a bid to showcase the beauty of the language and the importance of Chinese culture.

The celebration is held around the same time in April each year on Guyu, which literally means "grain rain," referring the 6th of the 24 solar terms created by ancient Chinese to carry out agricultural activities.

Dozens of UN staff members and diplomats from different countries participated in a host of events organized for the purpose.

Among the events were an exhibition of Chinese paintings and calligraphy and Yixuan Pang's Lecture-Recital "China: A lyrical journey," which consisted of seven representative Chinese folk songs, such as Dragon Boat Song, Kangding Love and Jasmine Flower.

In her recital, Pang explained the historical backgrounds, stories and singing styles of each song before she gave a live performance of the songs.

The exhibition of Chinese paintings and calligraphy that opened here Monday will run till Friday.

Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The other five official languages of the world body are French, Spanish, Russian, English and Arabic. The Chinese language is now spoken by more than a billion people, which means one in seven people communicate using Chinese in the world. Endite