Moments in February丨Shanghai Daily & JING'AN News

As the Spring Festival unfolds, Jing’an is staging a district-wide celebration for the Year of the Horse, turning historic lanes and marquee shopping streets into a platform for heritage, design and seasonal spectacles.

Under the theme “Galloping into the New Year · Encounter Jing’an,” the district’s culture and tourism authority is presenting 195 events through March 3, the Lantern Festival. They include performances, markets, exhibitions and interactive experiences aimed at both residents and visitors.

Holiday markets showcase time-honored brands, intangible cultural heritage crafts and traditional festive foods. Along Nanjing Road W., designers are weaving zodiac motifs into seasonal window displays, where global aesthetics meet Eastern symbolism.

The centerpiece is Zhangyuan Garden, a commercial and cultural hub carved out of a century-old shikumen, or stone-gate, neighborhood.

Events at Zhangyuan began on February 8 with a Shanghai-style Spring Festival garden fair. National-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor Lu Dajie led a dragon and lion dance procession down Maoming Road N., drums echoing through the stone-gated lanes. Nearby, the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra performed traditional silk-and-bamboo pieces against the backdrop of the historic compound.

In the square outside Building 12 — a garden residence known for its blend of Chinese and Western architectural styles — calligraphers as well as paper-cutting and printmaking artists worked before visitors.

Inside the building, a different scene unfolded. Emerging designers with international followings staged pop-up showcases that presented contemporary fashion rooted in Eastern aesthetics. Brands included Feng Chen Wang, Susan Fang, Xu Zhi and Une Yea. The pop-up ran through February 23.

From February 15 to 23, Lego joined the celebrations with large-scale brick installations inspired by dragon dances and galloping horses. Maoming Road N., temporarily closed to traffic for the holiday, became a pedestrian corridor lined with interactive displays.

After dark, Zhangyuan shifted into a different register. From February 15 to 23, the fourth edition of “Shining Shanghai · Light Up Jing’an (2026)” hosted a light show along the weekend pedestrian street on Maoming Road N., running nightly from 5:30pm to 9:30pm, and extending into Zhangyuan, Fengshengli and other commercial areas across the district.

Along Maoming Road N., overhead installations cast shifting projections of the “Five Blessings” — symbols of fortune, prosperity and longevity — rendered in laser-cut tassels and reflective materials. By day, the structures caught the sunlight, scattering fragments of color. At night, traditional motifs, including gourds, longevity peaches, silver ingots and begonia blossoms, emerged in illuminated form, turning the street into a corridor of auspicious imagery.

At the heart of the show were light displays inspired by Chinese master painter Xu Beihong, best known for his ink paintings of horses. Animated horses seemed to gallop out of his brushwork, moving through made-up landscapes that ranged from classical floral scrolls to textures inspired by textiles and neon-lit futuristic scenes. The shifting visuals blended traditional cultural references with contemporary digital techniques, framing the Year of the Horse through a modern lens.

Jing’an District plans to step up efforts in building a service ecosystem targeting various local businesses going global.

At the recently concluded “Global Service Providers Conference,” the district presented accreditation to the sixth batch of global service provider companies, covering fields such as law, consulting and human resources, highlighting the cluster effect of the industry in the area.

One-third of the companies included in the ranking by the GaWC, or the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, have already located their businesses in Jing’an, and the headquarters operations of global service providers in Jing’an are gradually upgrading their capabilities.

Jing’an introduced the “Global Service Provider” program to offer a platform that coordinates multiple high-level professional service institutions in the region, including KPMG, providing 60 services across 12 major areas, such as finance and taxation, legal and ESG.

The 2026 Global Service Providers Conference, organized by the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission and Jing’an District People’s Government, was held in Jing’an in late January under the theme “Forge Synergies for Shared Growth, Connect Businesses for a Shared Future” to further promote this program.

By the end of 2025, the program’s list of service providers had included 115 specialized international service providers.

Over the past three years, the business revenue of the professional service industry in Jing’an has increased from 148.236 billion yuan (US$21.447 billion) to 174.861 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 8.6 percent, accounting for about 20 percent of the total revenue among six major industries in Jing’an.

Jing’an has been focusing on major challenges faced by Chinese businesses going global, such as corporate overseas policy consultation and procedural guidance. It has set up the first consultation service point for overseas investment project approvals in the downtown area, providing services such as face-to-face policy interpretation and guidance on documentation.

Looking ahead, the district plans to further leverage the “Global Service Provider” program to accelerate the development of a high-end professional services cluster with global influence and recognition.

To achieve this goal, several initiatives have been put forward: encouraging the service providers to form a cluster while at the same time expanding the scale and improving the quality, efficiency and capacity of the commercial leasing and business services industry.

The district also plans to reduce the cost and barriers for enterprises to access high-quality professional business services, gradually building a service ecosystem driven by demands and empowered by policy and pilot rules.

It will also join hands with the Hongqiao Overseas Development Service Center to jointly promote targeted services for local businesses seeking overseas expansions.

In response to the diverse needs of enterprises during overseas expansion, it has integrated more than 50 top international professional service organizations to create a customized “service package.” Ten overseas service points in key global markets were set up, providing full-cycle support for enterprises going abroad and safeguarding their overseas development.

A series of seminars and training sessions were held through “New Go-Global Academy,” including training courses covering topics such as overseas compliance, market expansion and cross-cultural communication.

A joint “Global Leadership Accelerator Camp” was held in collaboration with the China Europe International Business School. Hundreds of professionals for international business expansion have received training through these initiatives, laying a solid foundation for companies going global.

The Yangtze River Delta region has deepened regional collaboration. A new collaborative model has come into shape that brought together the manufacturing base in the Yangtze River Delta region, the professional service sector in Shanghai and the global market.

Professional service institutions are encouraged to extend their services to the Yangtze River Delta region and offer guidance and services not only to enterprises in Shanghai but also to those in neighboring areas. To date, more than 700 enterprises in the region have benefited from such services during their go-global process, helping enhance their overall competitiveness.