Accent on weird and wacky for Halloween celebration

By Gedsiri Suhartono

JAKARTA (JP): Food services and entertainment providers in Jakarta are racing to attract as many goblins, witches and other scary, creative characters people may fancy to imitate this weekend. It's Halloween, time to get dressed up, expand your imagination, have fun, and perhaps play a little trick on others.

For some, it is an opportunity to take one's mind off the lethargy incited by a seemingly stagnant economic and political crisis facing the country. For those in the business of entertainment and leisure, it is a chance to reap some rupiah. Simply put, at least for many well-to-do Indonesians, Halloween means an opportunity to party and dress up as scary characters.

"When I was younger, I heard all about Halloween from my brother, who was studying abroad," said 28-year-old Liza (not her real name).

She used to host Halloween parties during her high-school years even though she and her friends did not know exactly what Halloween meant.

"But it was fun to get together, design our costumes, and do the things that many of the movies we watched depicted," said Liza, who later continued her studies at a Boston University.

Wanda Tumanduk, an organizer of Halloween Party at Pharama Rasuna street cafes, admits to having no cultural relevance to hosting the Halloween party.

"I just want all of us here, and hopefully all of our visitors, to have as much fun as possible. Indonesia has no national spooky fun day. Why don't we join the international standard of a fun and spooky night purely to entertain ourselves and others?" she asked.

Pharama Rasuna groups 30 tent cafes and bistros on Jl. Rasuna Said, Kuningan, South Jakarta, owned by celebrities, laid-off workers and university students.

Organizers at Pharama Rasuna seem to understand the general public's reluctance to dress up for the occasion. The 14 celebrities affiliated with the tent cafes and bistros were responsible for frights of the night with the appearance of, among others, a Dracula (Eko Patrio) and a vampire (Inneke Koesherawati), Cleopatra (Silvana Herman), Zorro (Heidy Yunus), Queen of Fire (Rita Effendy), Gypsy Woman fortuneteller (Tamara Geraldine) and magician (Sonny Tulung). Visitors did not have to wear a costume to join the fiesta on Friday night.

Jhody, a lead singer and comedian from the Super Bejo Band, who has taken part in several Halloween parties over the years, rated Indonesians involvement in Halloween celebrations only at the minimum level.

"Most of them are too shy or not creative enough to come up with good, interesting costumes," he said. A skeleton-item collector himself, Jhody believed that most Indonesians jump on the bandwagon of going to Halloween parties for lack of nothing better to do. They are either invited to come to the party or have friends whose band plays on Halloween night.

Charles Cabell, who is organizing a costume party for his Lan Na Thai and Face bar in Central Jakarta, holds a similar opinion. Average Indonesians with no exposure to the Western culture would not care much for Halloween. Those who have returned from living and being educated abroad, as many of his customers are, requested a Halloween party at their local hangout.

Halloween, a festival of Scottish-English origin, is held on the night of Oct. 31. The traditions were later taken by the Scottish and Irish to America.

In business, however, don't mind an ignorance of Halloween's history, let alone its rituals. For the consumers' pleasure, the timing of holding the event itself can be altered.

Front Row and TGI Friday's hosted an earlier start by holding their parties on Thursday night. Jalan-Jalan is opting for a five-day Haunted House display. Conventional Halloween-ers can tonight (Oct. 31) join the migration of the living dead and assorted great living to, among others, Shangri-La Hotel's B.A.T.S., Park Lane Hotel's Stix, Fashion Cafe, Champions cafe, Bengkel night park, Hotel Horison Bekasi's Tanjung Music Lounge and Sari Pan Pacific Hotel's Pitstop.

Planet Hollywood has altered its consumer target to focus on children under 10. "We feel children would be left out of the scene because most places cater their programs for adults. By focusing on a children's theme, we are likely to gain twice as much revenue because the kids are probably accompanied by their parents," said Wiwin Erikawati of Planet Hollywood.

Inneke Koesherawati, an actress and the owner of Warung Boom at Pharama Rasuna, admitted that part of the reason for hosting the fiesta was to enhance competition among those in the food and entertainment industry.

All things considered, Jhody reminded Halloween partyers to be politically correct in choosing their characters. Adversity and unrest abound in this country and has pigeonholed societies into often detrimental roles and stereotypes. Recent mysterious and random killings of those believed to be sorcerers by alleged ninjas present some fertile costume ideas. But perhaps not for going out trick or treating on a street in Indonesia right now.

But Liza, an upbeat member of the upper-class by any standard, refused to party this Halloween. "I just can't shrug it off. The condition is too gloomy. Too many uncertainties and anxiety," she confessed. So much for "Boo!!!" of scary fun.