Zou Xiaoli, Chinese ambassador to Greece delivers a speech before the show of Meet the Grand Canal at the Greek Global Cultural Center on Jan 23, 2018. [Photo/Chinaculture.org]

On Jan 23, a troupe from Hangzhou Opera and Dance Theater put on an elaborately designed dance drama Meet the Grand Canal at the Greek Global Cultural Center, kicking off the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in the country.

Zou Xiaoli, Chinese ambassador to Greece, and Stergios Pitsiorlas, deputy minister of Greek Economy and Development, watched the show along with over 1,000 locals.

Zou said the performance of Meet the Grand Canal would further advance the 2017 Greece-China Year of Cultural Exchanges. Recent years have witnessed increasingly close Sino-Greek ties and many great achievements thanks to cooperation between the two countries.