A grand parade celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival took place on Sunday at Expo City in Dubai, featuring traditional Chinese folk dances including the Yingge or Hero's Song Dance, dragon and lion dances, and hi-tech displays including dancing robots and self-driving cars.
The parade included representatives from all seven emirates which make up the United Arab Emirates, adding a special touch to the lively performances.
Alongside the parade, a special Spring Festival bazaar was set up, showcasing a variety of delicious Chinese cuisine and offering intangible cultural experiences such as paper cutting and calligraphy. Meanwhile, a range of Chinese tech showcases captured public attention, with crowds gathering to take photos as robots showed off their capabilities.
"We have a saying that technology enhances culture. As we all know, we have wonderful traditional cultures, and our contemporary arts are also remarkable. To make these cultures more appealing, especially to young people, we need to use some technological means to empower them, so they can attract more people to experience them," said Ou Boqian, the Chinese Consul General in Dubai.
During the event, promotional videos for China Media Group's (CMG) 2026 Spring Festival Gala, as well as the short film promoting the "China Travel with Chinese Films" initiative were screened on a loop. The festive and joyful visuals, along with the engaging audiovisual presentation, drew many guests to stop and watch.
Meanwhile, a CMG pavilion was open to visitors, showcasing the content and program selections for the Spring Festival Gala, as well as a variety of the media group’s cultural and creative products. A member of the Dubai royal family visited the pavilion and was briefed on the content and program selections for the Gala.
Hoda Ara, a visitor from Egypt, said that the Spring Festival was the part of Chinese culture that fascinates her the most.
"Spring Festival holds deep tradition in it, but it still can bring a lot like like what we see today, a lot of joy and a lot of beautiful energy to people from different backgrounds," she said.
The Spring festival will fall on Feb 17 this year, ushering in the Year of the Horse, the seventh of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.
Grand Spring Festival Parade lights up Dubai’s Expo City
South China's Guangdong Province is accelerating its transformation into an international medical tourism hub, positioning itself as a destination for patients worldwide seeking affordable, high-quality care.
The push follows a joint initiative announced in late March by nine Chinese government departments, including the Ministry of Commerce, aimed at boosting spending by foreign tourists and enhancing exports of tourism services as part of broader efforts to expand the country's service sector.
Every day, some of the most complex surgeries are performed here. Li Zilun, deputy director of the division of vascular surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat‑sen University, is among the doctors capable of carrying out these intricate procedures.
He recently completed surgery on a patient with an aortic aneurysm, a condition often described as a "time bomb" in the body’s main artery, increasingly common in aging societies around the globe. Li also specializes in highly difficult and pioneering procedures, including repairing leaks caused by failed grafts.
"This was a very challenging case. And then, we implanted the covered stent to eliminate the endoleak. Actually, the outcome was pretty good. The patient will be discharged today," said Li Zilun.
The ability to handle such complex cases -- combining international techniques with domestically produced devices -- is drawing patients from around the world to seek treatment. In addition, high safety standards and low costs are also major draws.
"Our government is encouraging innovation. So, lots of physicians -- including our vascular surgeons -- we are actively involved in the innovation that helps to increase the effectiveness and safety, and also bring down the cost," said Li.
This hospital is one of the first in Guangdong to be designated by the provincial health commission as a pilot site for building an international medical service hub.
The growing number of patients has pushed the hospital to explore new ways to transform every step -- from treatment to payment and everything in between -- into a seamless experience, reducing waiting times and delivering better care for patients.
"I think it's fast. When the patient come here for just about, I think, one week, you can solve the problem," said Xiao Haipeng, president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University.
The hospital is also deepening its international cooperation with top-tier medical institutions, including those at Harvard University.
"Not just for China, for the whole globe, we are facing health care challenges -- emerging infectious disease and chronic, lung infectious diseases, and also the aging population, also the shortage of healthcare workforce," said Xiao.
In response to these challenges, China is promoting its own solutions, including aggressive innovation in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven workflows, while stepping up research and development investment and global engagement along the way.
"In recent years, the innovation in Western medicine is dramatically growing. An example of my hospital -- in the past few years, we have 140 innovations and seven of them are international leading innovations," said Xiao.
As global demand for medical tourism grows, China is positioning itself as a new destination. Official data shows that the number of foreign patients in Guangdong increased by 20 percent last year. Among them, the growth in inpatient admissions was even faster, rising by 76 percent.
Guangdong fast-tracks pilot for int'l medical service hub
