Schoolchildren beat drums and crash cymbals along the parade route. Men and women display their faces and bodies impaled with a variety of objects as a display of homage to the spirits.
The following explanation about the festival was excerpted from a guy named Roger Arnold's web blog about the festival. Roger has posted some awesome photos as well.
His blog address is: flickr.com/photos/
"Alter carriers dance in explosions at the Phuket Vegetarian Festival Street Procession, Phuket Town, Thailand. Young men carry alters of the deity images though town which culminates at central locations where merchants cover them with huge strands of firecrackers and larger explosives. The louder and longer blasts are best to drive away evil spirits. The experience is deafening and engulfs the men and alters in a painful barrage of fire and smoke.
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival celebrates the beginning of Taoist Lent, when devout Chinese abstain from eating all meat and other vices. The festival takes place on the first 9 days of the 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. Everyone dresses in white and shopkeepers set up small alters with offerings of incense, flowers, candles, fruit, and 9 cups of tea to the 9 emperor deities honored by the festival.
Mediums bring the 9 gods to earth entering a trance state and piercing themselves with all kinds of objects, climbing knife ladders, and walking on hot coals. The mediums participate in daily processions through town where they stop at the store front alters, drink one of the 9 cups of tea, and offer blessings to the merchants. The shopkeepers stand in prayer like fashion respecting the mediums that are temporarily possessed by the deity. The self torture is done to shift evil from individuals to the mediums and bring the community good luck."
1 comment:
I think I've been to that party. Well, not quite. John Gotti used to throw something similar in NYC's Little Italy every July 4th (I mean the fireworks, not the piercing). Hardly as wild as these images. The National Geographic Channel ran something like it on their MONDO CANE-like exploitation series, TABOO. Of course, they didn't have Dave's discerning eye. Anyhow, nice to see vegetarians having a bloody good time getting penetrated . . . in any medium!
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