Vegetarian Festival Phuket Festival

- Vegetarian festival Phuket, body piercing extreme, fire walk and more.

Is on the agenda at Phuket in October on the first day of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar - normally in late September or the beginning of October a bizarre Phuket festival is going on. It's body piercing extreme at the vegetarian festival Phuket plus fire walk and other exotic performances around several Chinese temple. Similar is going on at Trang, Krabi, Takua Pa, Satun and Ranong province but by far not such extreme stuff this Phuket festival was created by Phuket Chinese and is one of the most exciting festivals of Thailand.

Vegetarian food is served at street stalls all over the city, body piercing extreme and walk on fire is done during one day only and many participants show their full body tattoos. The action is around and in several Chinese temple in Phuket and elsewhere in Thailand. Body piercing extreme and the razor blade climber up the ladder and down on the other side are real strange things you wont hardly find elsewhere. Some call it a Taoism Celebration.

The actual vegetarian festival in Phuket where the action is on are Bang Niaw and the Jui Tui Chinese Temple, it centers mainly around Phuket Town and last from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. The festival is especially bizarre considering what kind of materials the devotees (called -the soldier of god) push through their skin on different parts of the body, primarily around the mouth region, this festival rather looks like a gathering of masochists.

The Taoist Celebration of the vegetarian festival in Phuket is done in all Chinese temples in Phuket and also is celebrated by Thais who are not necessarily of Chinese

origin or within the Taoist philosophy. At that time many Chinese migrated to Phuket to work in the newly discovered tin mines and they brought a Chinese drama group with them. Many of the group turned vegetarian in the hope to immunize them from malaria some of them contracted.

Bang Niaw Chinese Temples in Phuket during vegetarian festival Phuket Thailand

The center of the festival are several Phuket Chinese temples on Phuket, like the Bang Niaw and the Jui Tui Chinese Temple. At the vegetarian festival Phuket means a great event to boost Phuket tourism. One of the main performances when the people get absolute control over the body is  vegetarian festival Phuket face skewering. The vegetarian festival Phuket perform is to get all kind of strange items into the face for face skewing. The important vegetarian festival Phuket performance is no visible pain and no blood. This is strange enough since just try to bang one of this items shown below into your face and body and no blood is visible, under normal conditions this is simply not possible.   The Phuket festival has some more hot surprises, what about running over hot coals at the vegetarian festival in the evening. Some of the guys who perform at the vegetarian festival Phuket even do hot coal swallowing, which is a real strange ritual anyway also carrying the Chinese deities from one Chinese temple to another is real exotic stuff real Thailand festivals. Thailand culture has lots of things a normal "farang" or foreigner wont understand, e.g. why to need a pocket calculator to subtract sixteen from twenty and so on, but in any case the vegetarian festival in Phuket is a great exotic event and show a couple of things nobody understands anyway, such as pushing a sharp iron rod through the cheeks, penetrating on one side, coming out on the other side and absolutely no blood flows. To watch  all this go to the Chinese Temple near Robinson Department Store early in the morning at least by 7 am and after strange things happen. Have a look at the pictures below and in particular at the video, that tells more than 1 million words. The link to the vegetarian festival video is below or number 41. in the Thailand Video Page through the menu.   With the time the custom to pierce the body and face and walk barefoot over hot charcoal came into the festival.

The deities are carried from one Chinese temple to another by spectacular and very noisy processions Chinese deities are carried from one Chinese temple to another.

Head piercing extreme

Thailand festivals swords in the mouth

Barbed wire Masochist fashion

  
   Umbrella piercing  the  mouth

Some of the piercing actors at the vegetarian festival in Phuket are supposed to act as a mediums between deities and the earth.

They try to achieve a special state of  out of mind. Once it is reached, their body is pierced by all kind of objects objects as shown above, such as knifes needles, barbed wires, bamboo poles, umbrellas ect. The peculiar thing is, they put all this objects through the skin and wont bleed most of the time which is strange indeed.

The ten basics during the days are:

1. Total cleanliness of the body.
2. Clean kitchen utensils and use them separately from other who do not join the festival.
3. Wear white cloth.
4. Behave in a good way, physically and mentally.
5. Don't eat meat.
6. No sex.
7. No alcohol.
8. People at mourning should not attend the festival
9. Pregnant ladies should not watch any ritual.
10. Ladies with menstruation should not attend the festival.

This unique festivals of Thailand has its origins on the southern island of Phuket some 180 years ago and has gradually spread to virtually all parts of Thailand. The vegetarian festival has been started by Chinese. It began among the Chinese immigrants who came to Phuket Island in the early 19th Century to work in the tin mines.

According to historians, about the year 1825, malaria struck the Chinese miners and some artist from a Chinese theater group started the vegetarian trend in the hope to get rid of malaria by eating vegetarian food only , they were not successful but myths hardly vanish. Now each year at the same time -more or less- vegetarian festival is on and people on Phuket island practice a period of cleansing by adopting a vegetarian diet.

Offerings to the Chinese divinities are made and a strict code of eating and dress conduct is followed, which included sexual abstinence and foregoing the consumption of alcohol. As the years went by, something bizarre took place in the vegetarian festival. Individuals spontaneously began to be “possessed by spirits” during the vegetarian festival and would take to cut themselves with sharp object or slashing themselves with razor sharp knives.

Yet once the spirit had left them, there would be no visible wounds, but there are scars. This Hindu like self-mutilation naturally drew tourists to Phuket island, and the vegetarian festival spread over Thailand with the time, since clever Thai people noticed they can earn money with it and that's the name of the game.

Thai vegetarian food is no bad and just as any food but not as much proteins. This is one of of the reasons why most people in south east Asia are rather small because they mostly eat vegetables that means no veggie rocks. Only pork and beef does.

Vegetarian Food at Festival Phuket	Vegetarian Food at Festival Phuket
Vegetarian Food at Festival Phuket	This Phuket Festival is on not only on the island. People saw they could make money with it, so many other places started the same.   The yellow signs on the road bear a Chinese character in red and the Thai word “jeh” next to it, mean vegetarian. Any vendor displaying the signs sell flesh free food and the restaurants serve only meatless dishes.
Vegetarian Food at vegetarian festival Phuket

Body piercing

Large needles piercing the mouth

Variants of piercing the body

In Bangkok, the Vegetarian Festival is on at Yaowarat  or Bangkok Chinatown. It begins on the first day of the 9th month of the Chinese lunar calendar with action similar to those at Phuket. People in Chinatown already have started buying vegetarian meat substitutes, mainly high protein soy bean products, during the vegetarian festival meat sales drop by around 70 percent during the ten days of the festival.

Tongue piercing with umbrella

Strange object mouth piercing

Piercing the Cheek

Mouth piercing with needles

Tongue piercing with needles

Cheek piercing

Carry the Chinese deity

Deities action and fire cracker

Action and fire cracker

Next time you come to Phuket Thailand during vegetarian festival time, look for those yellow signs. If it is not that time of year, just tell your waiter you want to try the aharn jeh, the dishes on the vegetarian menu. Most restaurants will have one. It's a healthy diet and a break from the usual meat heavy diet that is so common in the west.

Fire walk and body piercing extreme is for the real brave guys and girls, try it yourself, if body piercing extreme is a bit to strange what about a nice fire walk or rather run. Even Thai girls are doing it, they run as quick over the red coal as if a dragon is after them.

Also check -videos-. You can find the story about the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket Thailand also in our e-book on southern Thailand with unbelievable photos an pictures in large format, a video about the festival, here.

 
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