KUCHING, Aug 27: The 18th Kuching Inter-Cultural Mooncake Festival (KIMF) will be held from Sept 6-13.
In a statement, the KIMF 2019 organising committee said that throughout the years, the event was built on the thrust of the slogan “Sight, Sound and Taste” .
KIMF aims at fostering unity amongst races or “unity in diversity” and will continue with this thrust in this year’s festivities and to showcase as many ethnic cultures as possible in all their glory, with colours feeding sight, music feeding sound and great food feeding taste to visitors.
Artistic, cultural, traditional or modern performers and entertainers are invited to come to the fore and participate as part of the ‘Sight and Sound’ and ‘Sight and Taste’ segments, while stall operators who want to sell food, souvenirs or any suitable product as determined by the committee are welcome to come forward and apply for a slot at the festival. The stall spaces are being rented out at RM320 per unit.
Those interested to participate or set up stalls are requested to contact Lim Chuan Chan at 016-866 1711 for further details.
The event will commence at 6pm and end at 11pm nightly.
According to the organiser, this is to allow the businesses in Carpenter Street to continue with their daily businesses unhindered and for all to have a joyful time at night with family and friends.
Kuchingnites are urged to join the event and to bring their friends to celebrate the “City Of Unity” together in merriment.
Earlier, the Federation of Kuching Division Community Associations appointed the Old Market Community Association which is a member of the federation to take up the task of organising the annual event once more. Sim Kiang Chiok and Cr Amy Tnay Li Ping are the joint organising chairpersons again while the new function chairman is Lim Chuan Chan and function advisor is Penghulu Tan Heng Kee.
Sim at the KIMF 2019 meeting held at the Kuching Resident’s Office here today said that they owed the event’s strength to the endorsement afforded to the festival by Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg.
“The Chief Minister has been our most ardent supporter from his first appointment as our Tourism Minister. We would like to put on record our utmost gratitude for his continued advice and direction to help keep this event relevant and vibrant,” he said
Sim also thanked the Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah for continuing with the policy of his predecessor by sponsoring the event and his ministry’s continuous support for future events
He also recorded his sincere thanks to his late father Dato Sim Swee Yong who has passed on June 17 ,2018, as without his vision and support for this event since its inception in year 2002, it would not be possible to have a festival of this nature.
Sim added that since then, everybody involved had come together to celebrate not only their differences, but their unity in diversity and to continuously to remind themselves to work in unity as Sarawakians in order to progress and prosper.
The committee also extended their thanks to the Kuching Resident’s Office, the local councils, the two city mayors, the police, Kuching Water Board, Sesco, People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA), Fire and Rescue Department (Bomba), Sarawak Tourism Board, Trienekens and Plaza Merdeka for their support for this festival.
