Malls mark celebration with festivals

JAKARTA. To welcome the 2565th Chinese New Year next Friday, shopping malls in the city are luring customers with midnight sales, festivals and various competitions related to Chinese culture.

Outlets at the Taman Anggrek and Ciputra malls on Jl. Letjen S. Parman, West Jakarta and at Sentra Kelapa Gading shopping district in North Jakarta, for example, are offering discounts of up to 80 percent, while their developers are organizing various attractions to attract customers.

“All the stores at our mall will open until midnight on Saturday, offering discounts of up to 80 percent,” Taman Anggrek spokeswoman Nina Anastasia said on Friday.

To support the midnight sales, the mall’s management company would offer a Rp 100,000 (US$8.21) meal voucher for each purchase worth no less than Rp 300,000 of goods other than food and beverages and would not charge parking fees, said Nina.

She said the mall considered the Chinese New Year celebration as important because around 70 to 80 percent of its customers were of Chinese descent.

“We expect the number of daily visitors will double during the Imlek season,” she told The Jakarta Post, adding the number of daily visitors averaged at 70,000.

On Friday, the nearby Ciputra Mall opened its Lotus Festival for Imlek to attract customers by, among others, offering lucky draws for angpao (red envelopes containing cash) worth up to Rp 500,000 and some other prizes during the 19-day festival.

The mall’s general manager, Ferry Irianto, said visitors could fish for angpao in a lotus pond after they had spent a minimum Rp 500,000 on shopping.

The malls introduced their Imlek promotion festivities under different themes.

Ferry said his mall had chosen Lotus as its theme because the flower, a yin and yang symbol, represented balance in life.

Nina said Taman Anggrek had chosen 1930s Shanghai as its theme this year to remind customers about of Chinese history.

“Shanghai was already developed in the 1930s, when surrounding cities were lagging behind,” said Nina.

During the Imlek season, the malls will also present barongsai (lion dances) as entertainment for their visitors.

Nina said visitors to Taman Anggrek could enjoy barongsai pool dances every weekend until Feb. 9.

Ferry said Ciputra Mall would present barongsai pool dances, along with Chinese music and percussion performances, every Friday for three weeks.

“On week days, visitors can enjoy [Chinese traditional] potehi puppet performances,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sentra Kelapa Gading shopping district is welcoming Imlek with various entertainment along the streets to spoil visitors, according to Cut Meutia, a spokesperson for Summarecon, the developer of the Kelapa Gading residential area. (nai)

Entertainment at the shopping district - comprising Kelapa Gading Mall, La Piazza and Gading Food City – would include barongsai, Chinese opera, 1000-hand dances and wushu performances, Meutia said.