Cultural Merchandize Coupons Popular at Chusok

It is a time honored Korean tradition to give and receive gifts during Chusok, the biggest holiday in Korea. Therefore merchants usuall enjoy a surge in special orders during the Chusok holiday season. Various kinds of gift sets are sold at deparment stores right up to Chusok, which actually falls on August 15 in the traditional lunar calendar but this year is on October 5.
However, this year almost everybody feels a sharp chill, especially in consumption due to the IMF bail-out. Under the circumatances, cultural merchandize coupons with which we can buy cultural goods like books or cultural services like tickets to cultural events are very popular among Koreans.
Chaebols like Samsung and SK who gave gift sets or merchandize coupons from department stores to their customers and employees in the past are giving cultural coupons this year. People in general seem to prefer to these kind of cultural coupons.
A salesman at Kyobo Book Store in Seoul said, 'Housewives in their fourties to fifties rush to the cultural coupon counter and buy about 20 coupons each.'
According to the Korea Culture Promotion Co, who sells cultural coupon, it sold 150,000 coupons from September 15 through the 24th, five times more than usual.
Choi Byung Ho of the promotion company analyzed, 'A Low price (5,000 won per coupon) with cultural satisfaction has made cultural coupons the No.1 Chusok gift.'
Cultural merchandize coupons are available in 3,500 stores including post offices and branches of the Industrial Bank of Korea. The coupons can be used at 134 performance halls including the National Theater and Sejong Art Hall, or 8400 theaters and stores around the country.