Lantern show to take place of Jumbo Mart
A Hakka-style feast, pop concert and Halloween masquerade dance party will be held at the East Tamar site, tourism chiefs announced yesterday.
A lantern show is also being arranged for the Mid-Autumn Festival. It will replace the Jumbo Mart open-air market, postponed this week for fear it would not attract enough overseas visitors.
Stanley Yip Cho-tat, general manager for research and development at the Hong Kong Tourist Association, denied the Jumbo Mart plan had been a mistake.
'It's an experience, not a mistake. We have some principles and we have not changed those principles.
'We said the open market would fulfil the objectives of a special arts and cultural event and make it a specialist event to attract tourists. Last week we realised the majority of the booths were selling cold food . . . the mix was not right.' The new events, to be staged under the banner title 'City of Life - Harbour Fun Carnival' are being produced in conjunction with Metro Hit Radio which will broadcast some activities.
A Sunday market will be staged from October 11 onwards, with people who submit 'creative proposals' to Metro going in to win one of 50 free booths.
Visitors to a free lantern festival on October 5 will see lanterns depicting popular attractions and demonstrations of traditional skills used to make them, and a Cantonese opera in English.
Still to be scheduled are a pop concert where it is hoped mainland and Taiwan singers will join local stars, an outdoor Halloween masquerade with the Hong Kong and Kowloon skylines as a backdrop and a 'Big Bowl Feast'.
The latter will feature the pun choi banquet common to Hakka walled villages in the New Territories where everyone eats from the same large pot.
