NEW YORK, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted its annual Chinese Spring Festival activities on Saturday to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Dog.

The Festival features dozens of engaging programs for visitors of all ages, including dance and music performances, a bamboo flute and percussion concert, artist-led workshops and interactive gallery activities, a hand-pulled noodle demonstration, storytelling and more.

"We've been doing this for over nine years. I've seen little kids go from the tail of a dragon to the head of the dragon," said Sandra Jackson-Dumont, the Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose chairman of education.

"What's beautiful about this is that it's becoming an annual tradition for people coming here year over year; what's also beautiful is that, as an African American, my family's here learning about Asia; you can see our visitors are people with different backgrounds, respecting each other, learning from each other, and enjoying the day together," she said.

Lunar New Year Festival: Year of the Dog is organized by the museum's Department of Education. All the festival programming is free with the museum admission ticket.

William Crow, managing museum educator, said "It's really to help people know that, arts and culture is something that happens everyday, and museums are places where you can not only witness arts and culture but you can participate in arts and culture from all over the world. That's our main goal for the day, to hopefully contribute to a greater global understanding."

Carter, festival participant, said the programs "are very crowded but it's a lovely option of having the kids enjoy multiple activities here including fan making, coloring multiple pictures, and having a display of theatrical entertainment."

Also as part of the Year of the Dog celebration, the Guide Dog Foundation, America's Vet Dogs, and Guiding Eyes for the Blind brought in working service dogs and puppies in training to help people understand the important work guide dogs perform for people with various disabilities.

This is the ninth consecutive year for the museum to hold celebrative events for the Chinese New Year.

The museum has seen an increase in visitors from China in recent years. In the 2017 fiscal year, 37 percent of visitors were international. Chinese visitors made up 15 percent of that total, up 2 percent from the previous year. Online, the year-on-year increase was even greater, with 18 percent more sessions from China on the museum website during 2017.