WorldSkills Museum celebrates Lunar New Year with a skills carnival

The WorldSkills Museum joined Spring Festival celebrations in China for the first time, welcoming the Lunar New Year with fun workshops showcasing the craftsmanship, science, and talent behind skills.

Many families with young children visited the Museum to enjoy the 2024 Spring Festival Skills Carnival, which took place on 8 February, trying their hand at traditional and contemporary skills.

On the ground floor, people queued for the five DIY booths teaching Chinese knots, New Year paper-cutting, fun printing, handmade soap crafting, and woodworking. Some of these heritage skills are also featured in the Museum’s Zone 3: Skills Development in China, which acknowledges the country’s deep commitment to skills.

Participants at the paper-cutting workshop strived to create beautiful pieces of art. Ms Zhou, the instructor, noted children’s strong hands-on abilities and their keen interest in paper-cutting. She said, “Having the opportunity to let more people understand traditional Chinese craftsmanship is both joyful and meaningful.”

A mother and daughter, who had come for the Carnival from Pudong, Shanghai’s central district, particularly enjoyed Chinese knot making, adding that it helped them to appreciate the commitment of Chinese artisans to craftsmanship.

On the first floor, the ‘Young Barista Experimental Area’ taught teenagers not only the journey of coffee from seed to cup, but also how to make professional coffee and create latte art. Eleven-year-old Yuhan Yu and Bowen Chen, seven, came to realize how skilled the job was, as they poured milk into their coffee and tried to create a heart shape.

On the Museum’s fourth floor, WorldSkills Champion in Floristry Pan Shenhan, gold Medallist at WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017, awaited visitors with a festive flower arrangement. Mr Shenhan presented two unique floral master classes, showcasing his skills in flower arrangements, and helping participants create their own New Year bucket.

Using the same structure from the Competition, Mr Shenhan carefully selected flowers, predominantly in red, to create a festive atmosphere for the Lunar New Year. The colour red symbolizes luck and hope, making it appropriate for the Spring Festival.

"As Pan added each flower to the arrangement, a simple framework gradually became magically full. It taught me that floral art is not just about the individual beauty of flowers, but the overall layout and aesthetics,” said one of the young people taking part in the masterclass.

A unique exhibit captivated teenagers walking across the atrium of the Museum’s third floor: Festo’s bionic fish swimming in a water tank, and the tablet-controlled bionic flowers. The device serves as introduction to bionics, and is designed to inspire young people’s curiosity in nature and help them understand the electromechanical principles behind bionics.

The artefact is part of the Bionics Digital Learning Zone, donated by WorldSkills Global Partner Festo, an area of the WorldSkills Museum looking at the fourth stage of the Industrial Revolution and how it is continuing to produce new technologies based on the fusion of physical, biological, and cyber systems.

Situated on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai’s historic YangPu district, the WorldSkills Museum opened its doors on 6 November 2023, becoming the first Museum in the world to be dedicated to skills and marking an important milestone in the history of the WorldSkills movement.