An American poses with the "Fortune God" in San Francisco's Chinatown. [Liu Yilin / Xinhua]

Americans celebrate Chinese New Year. Kelly Chung Dawson reports.

As Chinese New Year approaches, overseas Chinese organizations are preparing to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Dragon. American audiences will have a range of festivities to choose from, including concerts featuring world-class Chinese singers and dancers, an exhibition of landscape painter Fu Baoshi's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and various celebrations around the US.

The Lincoln Center kicked off the revelries with a four-day engagement of The Peony Pavilion by the China Jinling Dance Company earlier this month, a performance that was sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, as part of an ongoing push to promote Chinese culture worldwide.

"It's a Western culture-meets-Eastern tradition sort of moment in the US right now," Li Li, executive vice-president of the Sino-American Friendship Association (SAFA), says.

"This is a great time for Americans to know more about China, and I see more and more Chinese cultural activities happening in the US."

SAFA was also invited to participate in the annual Times Square ball-drop celebration on Dec 31.

It was the first time a Chinese organization had been invited to participate in an American television tradition that is broadcast to an estimated 1 billion people worldwide a year. Organization members performed a lion dance and spoke to onlookers, as New York City deputy mayor for operations Caswell Holloway looked on.

"Americans are much more open to Chinese culture today than they were even 15 years ago," Li says.

"Americans know more about China than ever before. As Chinese students continue to come to the US to study, and as Americans travel to China for business and study, there are more opportunities for cross-cultural communication."

The Empire State building is currently hosting a Spring Festival window exhibition featuring four displays depicting traditional Chinese New Year festivities, including a family dinner, a temple fair, firecrackers and scenes of elders handing out red money envelopes, consul for the Chinese consulate in New York Ma Yunfei says. The exhibition attempts to convey a human connection between US and Chinese cultures, he says.

"There are universal values shared by Americans and Chinese, and the exhibit demonstrates that," Ma says.

"For instance, people of both countries cherish family values, which are shown in the family reunion dinners in the exhibition. Though Americans may not be familiar with the actual forms, the common emotions can still strike a chord."

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will host an exhibition of the landscape painter Fu Baoshi's work that opens on Jan 21.

Fu is renowned for his integration of both Western and Eastern elements in his work, and is considered "perhaps the greatest figure painter and landscapist of China's modern period", the museum says.

On Jan 22, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall will host Chinese New Year with Beijing, a concert by three globally acclaimed Chinese tenors - Dai Yuqiang, Wei Song and Warren Wah-lun Mok. They will be accompanied by musicians from the Opera Orchestra of New York.

"There is no better way to convey the friendship between two nations, to experience and celebrate a rich tradition of Chinese culture," a representative of the Sino-American Culture & Arts Foundation (SACAF), which helped organize the event, says in a statement.

"It is a unique opportunity to experience rich Chinese culture and the performances of three fine Chinese artists."

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Tourism Development and the Beijing Performance & Arts Group Co are also sponsoring the event. According to SACAF, it will be broadcast to millions of viewers in China.

On Jan 24, the New York Philharmonic and the Inner Mongolia Children's Chorus will perform at the Lincoln Center with Chinese cantor Yu Long and Chinese pianist Lang Lang. They will be performing both Chinese and Western pieces.

"This concert is interesting in that it's a sign that Chinese can also present Western culture back to Americans," Li Li, from SAFA, says.

SAFA helped organize the concert.

"This is a new angle for our association to promote this friendship to the US," Li says.

"They will be performing with Western musicians and they will be presenting Western culture. But the American musicians will also be presenting Chinese culture. So it's a great mix."

New Yorkers will also be able to attend performances of Shanghai Tango by Jin Xing and her dance company, the Jin Xing Dance Theater, at the Joyce Theater on Jan 31 through Feb 5. The engagement will mark the first time Jin has performed in the US for 20 years.