Vegetarian Festival kicks off in Thailand with tofu dishes, skewered faces
Bangkok- Thailand's nine-day Vegetarian Festival has kicked off in cities throughout the country with theatrical parades, dragon dances, curious displays of ritualistic facial piercings and markets bustling with kiosks serving up fried tofu and steaming
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.
-EPA
