[Video/Jiangsu International Online]

Venezuela native Barbara Godoy celebrates the Spring Festival with her Chinese friends. [Photo/Jiangsu International Online]

Venezuela native Barbara Godoy celebrated the 2023 Chinese New Year with her friends.

She experienced traditional Spring Festival customs, including making dumplings, putting up Spring Festival couplets, setting off fireworks, and worshipping ancestors, for the first time in 2016.

Godoy has been living in Nanjing, the capital of East China's Jiangsu province, for eight years. She studied Chinese at Nanjing University in 2015 as an exchange student and later obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in teaching Chinese at Nanjing Normal University.

Before arriving in Nanjing, Godoy had already learned a lot about the city's weather, food, buildings, and culture from her Chinese friend in Venezuela.

In her spare time, Godoy loves traveling around Nanjing and photographing local residents and streetscapes. She has participated in many photo competitions and won a number of awards.

A photo taken by Barbara Godoy. [Photo/Jiangsu International Online]

"Chinese culture has been part of my life," she said. "I want to visit more Chinese cities to experience different things."