

The Overseas Education College of Xiamen University holds an online event on Sept 20 to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival. [Photo/chinanews.com]
The Overseas Education College of Xiamen University held an online event on Sept 20 to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, attracting hundreds of students and faculty members.
Teachers invited to the online event shared details on the festival's folk customs with students, such as the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as fairy tales related to the festival, which showed Chinese people's love for life and hope for family reunions.
The online event was spiced up with an online "mooncake gambling" game, which originated from Xiamen.
Both Chinese and international students of the college jointly presented a poetry recitation via video to express their wishes for the festival.
A British student who has the Chinese name of Wang Shaohou said that it was his second time celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival in China and that he was very happy to celebrate it online with teachers and schoolmates. He also participated in the event's poetry recitation.
"Although we could only celebrate the festival online because of COVID-19 control measures, I was impressed that I learned so many folk customs about the festival from the online celebration," said Michael Chen, a postgraduate student from Argentina.
China has decided to extend its visa waiver policy to ordinary passport holders from Canada and the United Kingdom starting from Feb 17.
Forty-one new port-of-entry duty-free shops have been established nationwide, with Xiamen Xiang'an International Airport, Xiamen Wutong Passenger Wharf, and Xiamen International Cruise Center included on the list.