Warning: GRAPHIC IMAGES
Phuket Vegetarian festival is starting this week! Take a look of video we made last year to get an idea of what to expect.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is a colorful event held over a nine-day period in October, celebrating the Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind.

The Vegetarian Festival is observed nationwide on a grand scale. The most famous place holding this festival is the Phuket province where the most spectacular event takes place yearly.

This festival is not for the faint hearted, piercing their faces with knives, swords, guns and countless other objects as a means of shifting evil spirits from other individuals onto themselves and bringing the community good luck.

Observers follow a strict 10-day vegetarian diet to be cleansed spiritually before performing these painful rituals. Also the vegetarians are required to dress in white during the entire period as white signifies purity.

Fire walking, body piercing and other acts of self mortification undertaken by participants acting as mediums of the gods, have become more spectacular and daring as each year goes by.”

Film by Jeff Sainlar
www.jeffsainlar.com

http://www.tigermuaythai.com/

Warning: GRAPHIC IMAGES
In the newest film by Jeff Sainlar he documents the Phuket Vegetarian Festival.
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is a colorful event held over a nine-day period in October, celebrating the Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind.

The Vegetarian Festival is observed nationwide on a grand scale. The most famous place holding this festival is the Phuket province where the most spectacular event takes place yearly.

This festival is not for the faint hearted, piercing their faces with knives, swords, guns and countless other objects as a means of shifting evil spirits from other individuals onto themselves and bringing the community good luck.

Observers follow a strict 10-day vegetarian diet to be cleansed spiritually before performing these painful rituals. Also the vegetarians are required to dress in white during the entire period as white signifies purity.

Fire walking, body piercing and other acts of self mortification undertaken by participants acting as mediums of the gods, have become more spectacular and daring as each year goes by.”

Film by Jeff Sainlar
www.jeffsainlar.com

http://www.tigermuaythai.com/
http://www.fightingthai.com/

One of the most exciting aspects of the festival are the various, (and sometimes gruesome) ceremonies which are held to invoke the gods. Firewalking, body piercing and other acts of self mortification undertaken by participants acting as mediums of the gods, have become more spectacular and daring as each year goes by. Men and women puncture their cheeks with various items including knives, skewers and other household items. It is believed that the Chinese gods will protect such persons from harm, and little blood or scarring results from such mutilation acts. The ceremonies of the festival take place in the vicinity of the six Chinese temples scattered throughout Phuket. The main temple is Jui Tui Shrine not far from the Fresh Market in Phuket Town. The first event is the raising of the Lantern Pole, an act that notifies the nine Chinese gods that the festival is about to begin. The pole is at least ten metres tall and once erected, celebrants believe that the Hindu god, Shiva, descends bringing spiritual power to the event.

For the next few days, the local Chinese/Thai community brings their household gods to the temple, along with offerings of food and drink. It is assumed that the household gods will benefit from an annual injection of spiritual energy that fills the temple. Visitors can observe and even participate in the lighting of joss sticks and candles that are placed around the various gods.

http://www.tigermuaythai.com/
http://www.fightingthai.com/
A highlight video from the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, Thailand made by film maker Stuart Cooper.