China News Agency, Paris, January 14 (Reporter Li Yang) France Post held a stamp issuance ceremony for the Year of the Rabbit in Paris on the 14th local time to welcome the arrival of the Chinese New Year.
The picture shows the first day cover of the Year of the Rabbit stamp issued that day. The back cover of the first day cover is a painting of a rabbit drawn on site by Chen Jianghong, a French-Chinese painter and designer of Chinese zodiac stamps.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
Lu Shaye, Chinese Ambassador to France, and Philippe Val, President of French Post, attended the ceremony.
A set of two zodiac stamps for the Year of the Rabbit was issued on the same day, with face values of 1.16 euros and 1.8 euros respectively, and two stamp sheetlets were issued at the same time, each containing 5 stamps.
The Chinese "Year of the Rabbit" is printed on the stamp, and the Chinese "Chinese New Year" is printed on the souvenir sheet.
The stamp set has a print run of 330,000.
Lu Shaye said in his speech that 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit, and the rabbit elf is cute, which symbolizes well-behaved, gentle, quick-witted and quick-witted.
In ancient Chinese mythology, the Jade Rabbit is the medicine-making assistant of the fairy Chang'e, a beast living in the Moon Palace. The image of the Jade Rabbit in ancient Chinese poetry is often associated with the moon. China's first lunar rover was named after "Jade Rabbit".
He thanked La Poste Group for celebrating the festive season with overseas Chinese in France by issuing Zodiac stamps for the 19th consecutive year.
Lu Shaye said that the Chinese government has optimized and adjusted the prevention and control measures and adopted a series of measures to facilitate the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel.
It is believed that this will help restart Sino-French people-to-people and cultural exchanges and further tighten the ties of cooperation between the two countries in various fields.
Looking forward to 2023, Sino-French relations will surely develop rapidly and write a new chapter.
The picture shows the French zodiac stamp designer and French-Chinese painter Chen Jianghong (right) displaying stamps with the French people that day.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Yang
Philippe Val congratulated the successful issuance of the stamps for the Year of the Rabbit and spoke positively of the postal cooperation between France and China.
He said that the zodiac stamps enable the French people to understand Chinese culture more intuitively, which is of great significance for the spread of Chinese culture in France.
French zodiac stamp designer and French-Chinese painter Chen Jianghong showed the stamps to everyone and signed for the public on the spot.
This is the fifth set of zodiac stamps designed by Chen Jianghong for La Poste. His previously designed stamps for the Year of the Pig, the Year of the Rat, the Year of the Ox and the Year of the Tiger have been issued by La Poste in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively.
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