Rope-skippers and champion dancers jumping to it for LNY night parade

Ayra Wang

Hong Kong rope-skipping athletes who performed at the 2024 Paris Olympics and a world-champion-winning dance crew will be featured in the upcoming Cathay International Chinese New Year Night Parade on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

They are among the 46 performing groups - 16 from the mainland and overseas and 30 locally - who will entertain at the Tsim Sha Tsui parade on January 29.

Ho Cheuk-ki and Lee Chon-meng, who showed their wares in the jump rope shows and mock competitions in the 2024 Games, will join 22 rope skipping athletes from the Hong Kong Rope Skipping Association, as well as 11 top performers from the United States, France, Japan and Australia.

Lee, a first-time Cathay parade participant, hopes the performance will change the public's stereotype of rope-skipping as a boring sport and appreciate its innovation and internationalism.

Ho vows to give a "more enthusiastic" performance this year.

"I love the atmosphere of the parade as I can interact with cheering citizens along the route. It's like a concert, and we will give back to the spectators our best performances," she said.

Local dance club ChestRoll Dance Crew, winner of the 2019 and 2023 World of Dance Hong Kong competitions, will debut at the parade with its water-themed dances.

The 25-member team will perform various types of dance including Afro Dance, krumping and urban choreo with fast-paced South African music amapiano [the pianos in Zulu], offering an immersive experience.

Meanwhile, some flower shops saw business drop as citizens flocked to the Mong Kok Flower Market to pick good-quality auspicious flowers ahead of the Lunar New Year.

A flower-shop staff in the market observed a decline in customers, saying foot traffic was only half of last year's.

He added that their business has continued to be impacted by the continuing trend of Hongkongers going across the border for shopping and traveling.

But another flower-shop owner is optimistic about his business as more people had opted to buy flowers to celebrate the holiday in recent years. He also said the business was in line with expectations yesterday due to good weather.

Starting yesterday, police implemented crowd safety management measures and traffic control in the Flower Market Road area.