The 2025 CMG Spring Festival Gala got under way on Tuesday ahead of the lunar new year on January 29, ushering in the Year of the Snake.
This spectacle, an age-old tradition woven into the fabric of Chinese society, has gained an astonishing level of global traction—so much so that the United Nations has released a commemorative stamp sheet marking the Year of the Snake.
WATCH THE LIVE BROADCAST OF THE CHINESE SPRING FESTIVAL GALA HERE.
Most prominently, UNESCO has renewed recognition of Chinese New Year traditions, reinforcing how these cultural practices have transcended national boundaries.
The Chinese lunar calendar divides time into 60-year-long cycles and represents each year with 10 "Tiangan" characters and 12 "Dizhi" characters. For the Year of Snake, which roughly fits the year 2025, the characters are "乙巳."
The logo for the gala depicts two "巳" characters placed side by side. The left character is upright, while the right one is an upside-down mirror image.
This way of placing the characters matches the traditional Chinese style of placing a pair of ruyis. A ruyi is a decorative object widely used in China to express the hope for wishes to come true, which will also be the first half of the gala's main theme.
The second half is a fixed expression in the Chinese language that means the endless cycle of life.
The CMG Spring Festival Gala is currently under way.
IOL