In the run-up to the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, the SCO headquarters in Beijing held a gala reception. Among the guests were representatives of business, research and creative communities, and public organisations that contribute to the successful dialogue of cultures and civilisations within the SCO.
The reception programme included performances and artworks by Chinese performers and artists, and folk dancing. Guzheng player Gu Shen played the famous pieces "High Mountains, Flowing Rivers" and "An Evening Song over a Fishing Boat."
The New Euro-Asia Group Holding (Beijing), SCO Secretariat's partner in designing the SCO pavilion for the 2017 EXPO, gave a sneak preview of the design and functionality of the SCO pavilion in Astana. Artists invited to the SCO headquarters presented the organisation with paintings based on the best traditions of Chinese fine art, with the ‘Shanghai Spirit' as the main theme of the paintings.
Since the earliest times, the Chinese New Year, which since 1911 has been translated literally as the Spring Festival (春节), has been the most important and longest festival in China and other East Asia countries. It is celebrated on the second new moon after 21 December, the winter solstice. In the Gregorian calendar this would be a day between 21 January and 21 February.