The Musée Guimet invites you to celebrate the Lunar New Year with a weekend of festivities on February 1 and 2, 2025. Discover the program, including workshops, guided tours, nocturnal visits and encounters.
Time to celebrate! The Musée Guimet is celebrating the Lunar New Year with a host of events and a cultural program full of discoveries. The date is set: the museum awaits you on the weekend of February 1 and 2, 2025, to welcome the Year of the Wood Snake.
The Musée Guimet, located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, is officially named the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques. This cultural venue celebrates the history, arts and culture of Asian civilizations, from India to China, Japan and Southeast Asia. Throughout the year, exhibitions, workshops, conferences and other events enable the public to learn more about these Asian cultures.
For the Lunar New Year, the Musée Guimet has prepared a number of festive and colorful events. Visitors can discover various legends and traditions surrounding the passage to the New Year, as well as rituals and works of art from various Asian countries. For this event, the entire Asian community is celebrated and highlighted.
To make this weekend even more special, the museum is offering visitors an exceptional nocturne: the current temporary exhibition, Tang China, is open until midnight!
Discover the program for this Lunar New Year weekend:
- SHOW : La danse du lion
Saturday, February 1, 3pm and 4pm
20min
Khmer courtyard
Free, upon presentation of admission ticket (no reservation required)
For the benefit of our visitors and the museum, a troupe of performers dressed in lion costumes performs the famous traditional dance in the Khmer courtyard, imitating the movements of the mythical animal. This year, the lion dance is performed by Paris Lion Sport, whose troupe travels tirelessly in East Asia, notably Hong Kong and Malaysia, to enrich its repertoire and keep alive an age-old tradition.
- INSTALLATION: Guardians of Time
Free
To celebrate the Lunar New Year, four "Guardians of Time" - giant mythical creatures created by artist Jiang Qiong Er - emerge from their caves on the façade of the museum and join the Place d'Iéna. Symbolizing freedom, wisdom, benevolence and time, the creatures light up from within as night falls, like impressive lanterns bearing messages and whispering "Welcome, Year of the Snake".
Saturday, February 1
Nocturne until midnight (last entry 11.15pm)
- RENCONTRE LITTÉRAIRE: Une année en Chine
Sunday, February 2, 3pm
1h30
Salle arts décoratifs chinois - 2e étage
Free, subject to availability (1st Sunday of the month)
In ancient Europe, astronomers based their calendars on solar phenomena. Chinese scholars, on the other hand, relied on natural cycles involving both the sun and the moon. Journalist, translator and author Stéphanie Ollivier presents the importance of the seasonal cycle in Asian societies and the phenomena that punctuate the Asian year.
The meeting will be followed by a book signing for Une année en Chine. Almanach luni-solaire at the museum bookshop.
- VISIT WITH GUIDE: Les petites frayeurs du démon Nian
Saturday February 1, at 2.15pm, 3.15pm and 4.15pm
40min
From age 7
Meet in front of the Grand Naga of the Khmer court
Free, upon presentation of admission ticket (no reservation required, subject to availability)
The demon Nian is the originator of the Lunar New Year festivities. Discovering his story will help visitors understand the many traditions that surround this festival. Why do we celebrate? Why is the color red used, and why are lanterns carried in processions?
In the second part, visitors will follow in the footsteps of the twelve animals of the Asian zodiac.
- MULTISENSORY TALK TOUR: Legends of the Lunar New Year
Saturday, February 1, 11am 1:30am
Ages 8 and up, solo or with the family
Chinese Collection Rooms
Free, booking by e-mail at resa@guimet.fr
The Lunar New Year is an important family festival in Far East Asia. Visitors with visual impairments are invited to discover the legends told on this occasion, alone, accompanied or with the family.
Multisensory storytelling tours are specifically adapted for the visually impaired. They appeal to a variety of senses, whether through descriptions, media manipulations, olfactory and sound evocations, or tastings. Each visit offers a unique and accessible experience.
- WORKSHOP: The Chinese art of tea
Saturday February 1 and Sunday February 2 at 2pm and 4pm
30 min
Rotonde, 4th floor
€18 on the online ticketing service
The Chinese art of tea, gong fu cha, translates as "taking time for tea". Born under the Song dynasty (960-1279), this refined art consists of a preparation method designed to extract all the flavours from the leaves. The gestures, the utensils and the teas selected (Wulong or Pu-er) make this rare moment one of sharing and pleasure, awakening all the senses.
- CINEMA: Screening of Karst and She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones
As part of the Festival Allers-Retours, an essential reference for Chinese auteur cinema, which each year introduces French audiences to films never before seen in our latitudes.
- Saturday February 1st at 6:45pm
Karst by Yang Suiyi / 2024/ 108 min / Guizhou dialect / VOSTF
Far from the city, in an isolated village in Guizhou province, southwest China, Ziying, a cattle breeder, is confronted with the illness of one of her animals. To try to cure it, she crosses the countryside and seeks the help of a veterinarian in town, reconnecting along the way with childhood memories, figures from her past and buried stories.
- Saturday February 1st at 9:20pm
She Sat There Like All Ordinary Ones by Qu Youjia / 2024 / 105 min / Mandarin / VOSTF
Zhuang, a nonchalant high-school student, impressed by his fellow athlete, Meng, decides to denounce himself in her place for stealing a starter's pistol. Yet everything seems to oppose the two teenagers: he, exuberant and carefree, she, reserved and introverted. Behind this tale of budding romance at the dawn of adulthood, Qu Youjia's first feature film paints an intimate portrait of Chinese youth, caught between family expectations and the demands of a ruthless education system.
- EXHIBITION: Tang China. A cosmopolitan dynasty (7th-10th centuries)
Saturday, February 1
Nocturne until midnight (last admission 11:15pm)
Entirely devoted to one of China's most brilliant dynasties, the exhibition showcases the influence of the arts and letters, and the flourishing of a cosmopolitan population in China under the Tang dynasty (618-907).
The tour invites visitors to discover daily life at the time, as they wander through the streets of the Tang capital, Chang'an. An essential crossroads of the Silk Roads, this cosmopolitan city inspired painters, calligraphers, poets and craftsmen, and remains the symbol of this golden age of Chinese civilization.
For more festivities, see our guide.



Lunar New Year - Chinese New Year 2025 in Paris and Ile-de-France, the program of events
The Chinese, Vietnamese (Tet Festival), Korean, Singaporean, Malaysian, Indonesian and Filipino New Year, more commonly known as the Lunar New Year, falls this year on Wednesday January 29, 2025. This year, we'll be celebrating the Year of the Snake. Looking for a good way to mark the occasion? Discover the best ideas for celebrating the Year of the Wooden Snake, from parades to entertainment and good restaurants. [Read more]