Vegetarian Festival kicks off in Thailand with tofu dishes, skewered faces
October 2, 2016 The Nation
In Bangkok’s Yaowarat district, or Chinatown, streets adorned
with fluttering yellow flags, which signify vegetarianism, will be shut off to
cars and crowded with food stalls, music, massive pans of oily noodles and
throngs of white-clad devotees undertaking the rituals of spiritual
purification.
"(Followers) must wear white clothing as often as possible, avoid killing
or harming animals, and be mindful of their actions and thoughts," notes
the Chiang Mai Best
blog, adding that participants are also meant to abstain from alcohol and sex
during the originally Mahayana Buddhist holiday also known as the "Nine
Emperor Gods" event held annually in the 10th month of the Thai lunar
calendar.
The festival is similarly recognized in Pattaya and
Phuket provinces, where people can additionally be witnessed parading through
the streets with metal spikes and bars cleaved through their cheeks. In
stomach-churning apparitions, many Phuket inhabitants also choose to undergo
self-mutilation, sticking skewers through their faces or walking on sharp objects
during a trance that believers say immunizes them from pain, distracts evil
from the town and causes significant shock value to tourists and other
revellers.
According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, some 250,000 tourists arrive in
the southern province each year to feast on Phuket’s meatless dishes and enjoy
gory facial piercings, said TAT official
Anoma Vongyai, as cited by Pattaya Mail
news.
The majority of the tourists
hail from China, Malaysia and Singapore, where similar Taoist festivals to
encourage moral detoxes are celebrated but without the harrowing visions of
skewered faces and brutal displays of bodily harm.
"As a result of Phuket’s economy having shifted from dependency on tin
exports to tourism and its emergence as a world-class tourist destination, the Phuket
Vegetarian Festival has been promoted as a major tourist attraction,"
notes Chulalongkorn University Asian studies academic Kaewkwarn Silphiphat in a
study, published on the university website.
Amazing! Thailand is a nice country and especially they adopted loving animals through vegetarianism. Meat eating though may seemed calm, it is liken to the burning in a dead volcano awaiting condition for eruption. There is no free in life, enjoying meat of others without their permission, has to return back in a matter of lifespan, and the repaying will be much greater, with interests
"(Followers) must wear white clothing as often as possible, avoid killing or harming animals, and be mindful of their actions and thoughts," notes the Chiang Mai Best blog, adding that participants are also meant to abstain from alcohol and sex during the originally Mahayana Buddhist holiday also known as the "Nine Emperor Gods" event held annually in the 10th month of the Thai lunar calendar.
The "nine emperor gods" is not Mahayana, but Taoist just like Guan Yin niang niang, part of the Taoist pantheon. According to "Journey to the West", Guan Yin is an emissary of Buddha.
Highlight of the festival is to send off the gods in a boat out to sea, so thee nine emperors can return to the heavenly abode.