Thirty Central and Eastern European diplomats and their families visited Tianjin to experience traditional Chinese New Year culture and celebrate the Lantern Festival on Feb 24.

The delegation came from countries including Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and others. Luan Jianzhang, director of the Tianjin Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, accompanied the visit.

The delegation's first stop was the Tianjin’s Ancient Culture Street, where they visited Dareintang, experiencing the inheritance of traditional Chinese medicine culture. They also visited the Yangliuqing painting workshop to experience the craftsmanship of Yangliuqing New Year painting, and the Lianshengzhai Embroidery Art Museum to appreciate the exquisite and delicate embroidery techniques. Finally, they visited the Clay Figure Zhang Art Museum to admire lifelike clay figurines.

The delegation toured the lantern show at water park, where the artistry of the lanterns perfectly blended with the park's waterscape. During the visit, they also tasted Tianjin’s signature local snacks such as steamed buns and jianbing guozi, a kind of stuffed pancake. They also enjoyed performances of representatives of intangible cultural heritage projects of allgro, opera, and Kite Wei, as well as paper-cutting.

In recent years, Tianjin has maintained high-level exchanges with countries such as Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Belarus, and Hungary, achieving new outcomes in cooperation in education, agriculture, culture, sports, and other fields.