CRI听力:Nationwide Activities Underway to Celebrate Chinese New Year

With the Chinese Spring Festival around the corner, people across the country are holding various activities, filled with great joy, to celebrate the Lunar New year.

In a village of Dayu county in eastern Jiangxi province, hundreds of villagers have gathered together performing with folk musical instruments and dancing in lion costumes to celebrate the coming New Year.

Every year local people will make sticky rice, a traditional food, with several men squeezing and pressing the rice together with wooden pestles.

Here is a local villager making the traditional dish.

"Today everyone is here getting together, it's very busy and noisy. So this makes good atmosphere for the Lunar New Year. So even if I am tired but it doesn't matter. Because we are happy being together."

Immediately after the sticky rice is done, the villagers happily share the hot and delicious food.

In the capital city of Beijing, busy temple fairs feature traditional folk performances starting from Wednesday and lasting for eight days.

Citizens and tourists are going to see diversified forms of Beijing's traditional performances in art, singing and juggling.

In Guangzhou, capital city of southern Guangdong Province, the annual Spring Festival Flower Fair has kicked off.

Thousands of people have gathered to appreciate beautiful flowers and welcome the new spring.

Meanwhile, other parts of the country are also making preparations to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which falls on Thursday.