Phuket Vegetarian Festival

It celebrates the beginning of Lent Taoist ("Taoist Lent"), during which devout Chinese abstain from all meat and meat products. The festivities are centered on five Chinese temples, the most important being his Tui Th Ranong, followed by Bang Niaw Sui Boon Tong and. Other cities are celebrating, such Kathu (where the festival originated) and Ban Tha AAEN.

Each year, the TAT Phuket publishes a schedule of festivities. Trang, Krabi and other southern cities organize a similar festival.

The Vegetarian Feast contains various processions, offerings to the temples and cultural events. It ends in an apotheosis of self-mortification - walking on hot coals, climb ladders knife blades, puncturing the skin with sharp objects ... The downtown merchants have in front of their shops, altars where they place nine small cups of tea, incense, fruit, candles and flowers, for nine emperors gods invoked during the party. Mediums are the nine gods descend to earth for the time of the feast by putting himself in trance states and by piercing their cheeks with all kinds of items - branches cut to a point (with the leaves still attached!), Iron spears, paper clips, knives.

Some even open up the language with a saw blade or ax. During the processions, the media stop in front of the altars and make offerings of fruit to add to the array of objects piercing their cheeks or the offer to viewers by way of blessing. They also drink one of the nine cups of tea and have some flowers to their belts. Traders and their families attended the scene with folded hands in wai, out of respect for the mediums and the deities who possess temporarily.

The atmosphere is religious frenzy, with deafening noise of firecrackers, ritual dances, and shirts stained with blood. Some see an influence of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam in neighboring Malaysia, offering many similar acts of mortification. According to the Chinese in the country, the festival was established by a troupe of actors from China, which stopped at Khatu 150 years ago. The troupe became seriously ill and decided that his troubles came from what she had not reconciled enough favor with the gods-nine emperors of Taoism. The penance for nine days the actors self-imposed themselves included perforations, meditation and a strict vegetarian diet.