On the evening of December 22, 2015, Li Qiangmin and his wife Zeng Hongyan invited the Embassy consortium to watch the Magical Winter Lights festival held by lantern artists from Zigong, Sichuan, China. Consul Generals of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, France, Canada, Indonesia, Egypt, Hungary and other more than 20 countries, the Houston office of U.S. State Department and nearly 100 Houston government officials attended the festival.

Zigong Lantern Festival began from Tang and Song Dynasties and is the Chinese intangible heritage. This lantern festival in Houston is the largest scale of Zigong Lantern Festival held in U.S. In addition to more than 120 newly-designed lantern groups, the festival also arranged Chinese acrobatics, face changing performances of Sichuan Opera, paper-cutting and other Chinese traditional handicrafts shows, which unanimously praised by visitors.