On 19^th October 2025, Lancaster University Confucius Institute (LUCI) brought the richness of Chinese tradition to the Lancaster Festival of Culture, engaging the community with an interactive display centred on the Chinese zodiac.

The annual festival, which celebrates Lancaster’s diverse cultural communities, attracted many visitors to the Town Hall. The event featured food tastings, performances, and cultural experiences from around the world, establishing itself as one of the city's most significant cultural gatherings and an ideal platform for cultural promotion.

The Confucius Institute’s stall attracted a steady stream of visitors throughout the afternoon. Teaching faculty members from Lancaster University Confucius Institute distributed informational brochures about the Institute’s programmes and responded to queries from interested visitors. The main attraction was a creative workshop dedicated to the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, where participants could identify their birth year animal from a reference chart and then create their own animal masks using templates.

The activity provided a hands-on opportunity for cultural learning. As visitors coloured, cut, and assembled their masks, the team shared insights into the characteristics and cultural stories behind each zodiac sign, making the tradition accessible and memorable.

The Chinese zodiac, known as Sheng Xiao, is a cultural system with a history of thousands of years, forming an integral part of traditional Chinese heritage.

The successful outreach at the festival highlights Lancaster University Confucius Institute’s ongoing commitment to fostering cultural exchange and sharing key aspects of Chinese heritage with the wider Lancaster community.