CMG's New Year gala blends heritage, modernity

China Media Group (CMG) on Tuesday staged a grand New Year gala 2024/2025 which features a rich tapestry of Chinese culture.

Entitled "Sail into 2025," the gala sets its main stage at the Tianping Lake at the foot of Mount Tai in Tai'an, a city in east China's Shandong Province, the native home of Confucius (551-479 BC), one of the greatest Chinese philosophers and educators and founder of Confucianism.

The gala presented an audio-visual feast to showcase traditional and modern China.

It includes martial art, folk instruments and songs, folk dances, and other performances featuring traditional Chinese culture.

Meanwhile, a song which is specially created for the gala and sang by three actresses renders bustling street scenes of everyday life in China.

Another song, sang by two male singers, shows that young people in China are embracing opportunities in modern China to realize their ambitions and display their talents.

The gala also includes a program vividly displaying China's efforts to bring intangible cultural heritage to school campuses and classrooms from the perspective of a child from overseas.

With its natural and cultural values well interconnected, Mount Tai was listed as a World Cultural and Natural Heritage site by the UNESCO in 1987, the first ever in China.

The gala is broadcast on several CMG's TV and radio channels, as well as new media platforms across China.

The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the yuan, strengthened 20 pips to 7.0108 against the U.S. dollar Monday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

In China's spot foreign exchange market, the yuan is allowed to rise or fall by 2 percent from the central parity rate each trading day.

The central parity rate of the yuan against the U.S. dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day.