With the melody of four-stringed Chinese musical instrument pipa, dozens of singers of various nationalities dressed in their traditional costume sang Chinese folk song "Jasmine" in the celebrations for the sixth Chinese language day here on Monday.
"Jasmine a beautiful song and it is very famous. I knew it long before I joined the UN chorus," said Jilliane Say-Maranan from the Philippines.
The celebration is held in April each year on Guyu, or literally "rain for crops," which is the sixth of 24 divisions of the solar year created by ancient Chinese.
"Chinese language, as one of the most beautiful languages in the world, carries with it profound philosophical wisdom and embodies the essence of the Chinese culture," said Wang Min, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN.
"With China's growing influence, the Chinese language has also gained more popularity at the UN," Wang said, "There are more and more UN employees who can speak and write Chinese."
Henni Taari, who is also a member of the chorus, said she learned some basic Chinese back in her country, Finland.
"The Chinese language is difficult, but singable," she said.
In the celebrations on Monday afternoon, Chinese singer Yixuan Pang's show, "China: A Lyrical Journey," is made up of seven representative Chinese folk songs. After explaining the historical backgrounds, stories and singing styles of each song, she gave a live performance of each song.
The chorus and Pang sang "Jasmine" together using both Chinese and English, which wrapped up Monday's event.
Also as part of the celebration, an exhibition of Chinese paintings and calligraphy was also held.
Chinese language is one of the United Nations' six official languages. It is spoken by more than 1 billion people, one-seventh of the world population.
The UN Department of Public Information introduced the language days starting 2010 to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity, as well as to promote equal use of all six of its official working languages throughout the organization.
