Foreign resident Olivier Greder eats traditional local festival snacks at the New Year in Hometown event. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

A livestreaming event connecting locals with overseas Chinese across the world – called New Year in Hometown – was recently staged in Xiaozhoushan township in Qingtian county, administered by Lishui city in East China's Zhejiang province.

The event, which took place on Feb 5, was held in celebration of the upcoming Spring Festival.

The New Year in Hometown is a special activity conducted for the Lishui Village Spring Festival Gala. In previous years, local customs activities and intangible cultural heritage performances were staged on site in Qingtian, attracting large audiences. This year, for reasons of novel coronavirus epidemic prevention and control, the event was held online.

"In order to reduce the gathering of people, we arranged 22 programs half a month in advance for this year's New Year in Hometown. There were traditional singing and dancing, recitations and opera performances, as well as well-planned comedy shows and video stories," said the chief director of the event, Ye Weifeng.

Foreign resident Olivier Greder, who is married to a Qingtian woman, was invited to the event as a special guest. He joined the locals in working on creating Spring Festival couplets and eating traditional local festival snacks.

"My wife is from Qingtian. I have been to Xiaozhoushan many times, but this is my first Spring Festival here. It is an unforgettable feeling," Greder said in Chinese.

Watching the livestreaming were overseas Chinese in 33 countries across the globe including Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. They sent their best wishes to their families in Qingtian.