Many communities hosted events where calligraphers and calligraphy enthusiasts wrote Spring Festival couplets on site and presented them to local residents.

Chinese have the tradition to paste couplets on their doors and lintels on the Spring Festival as a way to convey wishes for peace, fortune and good luck in the coming year. The events rendered the residents help in their preparations for festival celebrations.

Over 60 young singles working at SIP’s Suzhou International Science Park joined the singles party held on Jan 17 at Suzhou AI Industry Park, a local AI cluster. The event included a series of activities designed to enhance the participants’ acquaintance with each other and offer them opportunities to find new friends and even their life partners.

The dumpling making competition was really interesting. After learning the skills of making Chinese dumplings from a chef from Grand Metropark Hotel Suzhou, the participants joined a 20-minute competition in an exciting and joyous atmosphere. They got to know each other better in the process.

The “Love Confession” session put the event to a climax when several of participants won the chances in a lucky draw to confess their admiration for the one he or she likes.

Overseas Chinese Academy Suzhou (OCAS), an SIP-based school for children of overseas returnees, hosted a Spring Festival fair on Jan 18 in collaboration with SIP Dongshahu Community Working Committee and Jinghua Community committee.

Staff from Dongshahu Office for Party and Masses Relations recruited volunteers at the event, calling on the participating students and their parents to join local volunteer service programs to do their bit in driving a better development of Dongshahu sub-district.

Staff from Urban Construction Office at Dongshahu Community Working Committee imparted knowledge on garbage classification to the participants, and offered them chances to win recycle bags by giving right answers to a list of quiz questions.