The Open University celebrates the Year of the Horse

The Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations returned once again this February, marking the arrival of the Year of the Horse. On Tuesday 10 February 2026, the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University hosted its annual festivities, welcoming over 150 OU staff and postgraduate students to an afternoon of enjoyable festivities. For the first time, the event was live streamed for people who were unable to make it in-person to join online, attracting over 100 virtual attendees as well.   

Building on the success of previous years, attendees enjoyed a mix of traditional Chinese live music, dance and Qigong performances. Live music was performed by renowned musician GUO Yue  (郭跃) alongside two elegant Chinese fan dances performed by the Milton Keynes Chinese Fusion Dance group. Attendees also enjoyed a calming Qigong performance by YU Feixia （余斐霞）who also delivered a popular workshop to make your own herbal sachets. We were also delighted to welcome professional painter Peter Cavaciuti who led traditional Chinese watercolour painting of a horses , alongside other activities such as ink calligraphy and learning to dance with silk fans.

We were delighted to be joined by OU Vice-Chancellor Professor Dave Phoenix and Professor Klaus‑Dieter Rossade, Executive Dean for the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies, who opened the event with warm words of welcome and congratulations. He extended his thanks to our partner university Beijing Foreign Studies University for their support over the last year. 

As ever, the celebrations were accompanied by some delicious hot spring rolls and traditional Chinese snacks and drinks for all to enjoy.   Two attendees, Emma and Kate commented that they really enjoyed trying out all of the activities, especially the painting which they found calming and therapeutic with great teaching from the painter as well as making their own herbal sachet bags. Another attendee Emma who joined from online remarked that the musician’s performance was ‘beautiful, so much so I made a note of his name and the Bawu flute, what a beautiful sound that makes’ and that she was ‘in awe of the Qigong performance’.

Throughout the afternoon, two charity prize draws were held in support of Milton Keynes Food Bank, offering a range of lovely prizes for participants. We were delighted that the event raised £117 from participant contributions.  The winning numbers are now published on the events page.

For those unable to join in person but would like to try the calligraphy and painting, the Online Confucius Institute staff carefully designed the calligraphy and painting worksheets for online attendees to try from home. Both in‑person and online attendees can share their photographs of their painting and calligraphy on the Padlet. The competition is open to OU staff and students and the winners will be updated on this padlet page soon where you can see the entries. 

To view the highlights of the day, watch the short video below. Photos from the day are on the padlet here. If you’d like to read a little more about the deeper cultural significance of Year of the Horse and learn traditional festive greetings, you can read Dr KAN Qian’s new article on OpenLearn

Happy Year of the Horse!
马年快乐 (mǎ nián kuài lè)