The University of Richmond, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Rose Group for Cross-Cultural Understanding partnered to host ChinaFest, an annual Lunar New Year celebration of Chinese culture that has taken place at UR and in Richmond for the past two decades. The three-day event, held February 6-9, featured musical performances, a ping-pong tournament at the Weinstein Recreation Center, film screenings at the Ukrop Auditorium, and art activities and performances off campus at VMFA’s ChinaFest: Year of the Wood Snake.

“ChinaFest is intended to touch many different groups of people, from children to students to faculty to lifelong learners,” said Martha Merritt, dean and Carole M. Weinstein Chair of International Education.

Opening night, which was co-sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, included a video retrospective of the last 20 years of ChinaFest and a tribute to co-founder Rose Nan-Ping Chen, who passed away in January.

Chen, who started the event in 2005 as the China-America Festival of Film and Culture, was known for fostering connections among people in the community and beyond, Merritt said. The festival receives support from her nonprofit, the Rose Group, and has included academic lectures, visits from filmmakers, and musical and dance performances throughout the years.

“ChinaFest came into being because of Rose and her lifelong desire to build bridges between China and the United States,” Merritt said.

The night continued with excerpts from the Hometowns Project, in which students created videos to showcase the sights and sounds of the cities in China that they call home, such as Hangzhou, Changchun, and Wenzhou.

(Click through the Hometowns Project map below to learn more about UR students' lives in China. The project is coordinated by the UR Chinese Students & Scholars Association.)

“Our generation of Chinese students grew up at the crossroads of two vastly different cultures,” said senior Ziran “Ted” Zhou as he introduced the project. “With the internet, we were constantly exposed to Western ideas, which are celebrated as modern, free, and individualistic. But at home and in school, we were immersed in Chinese traditions that emphasized respect for elders, cultural inheritance, and collective responsibility. The contradictions left many wondering where they truly belong.”

Shaoting Wen, a senior from Suzhou, performed “Three Stanzas of Plum-Blossoms.” Before playing, he explained that Chinese flutes like his are held vertically and have a mouthpiece at the top, compared to Western flutes that are played horizontally.

Junior Yixuan Chen presented his grandmother’s favorite song on the saxophone. “Yao Dance Music was created by Mao Yuan based on the folk music of the Yao Ethnic Group in Guangdong Province,” said Chen, who hails from Hangzhou. “The music depicts the Yao people singing and dancing joyfully during festivals and presents a colorful folk painting with its beautiful melody, brisk rhythm, and delicate strokes.”

Senior Zaowen Chen, from Nanjing, closed out the evening with a rousing guitar piece, “Ancient Dragon,” using the fingerstyle technique of plucking the strings with his fingers instead of a pick.

“While Western fingerstyle typically emphasizes rhythm, melody, and beat patterns, Asian fingerstyle often focuses more on specialized techniques like harmonics, palm muting, and percussive elements,” said Chen, who is part of the UR guitar ensemble led by instructor Kevin Harding. “I practice both styles, and ‘Ancient Dragon’ is an excellent fusion of these two approaches.”

A reception followed the performances, including a catered buffet from Peter Chang, one of Rose Nan-Ping Chen’s many friends.