Vegetarian Festival or the Nine Emperor Gods Festival

The Vegetarian Festival is a 9-day event based on the Chinese lunar calendar where participants are dressed in white to signify purity and follow a strict diet abstaining from meat, certain vegetables and alcohol as well as from various stimulants. The festival was brought in by a Chinese opera group who fell ill from an epidemic while performing in Kathu area. When the epidemic hit, the group decided to follow an old sacred Chinese ritual by adhering to a strict vegan diet, built Phuket’s first Chinese shrine in Kathu and prayed to the Nine Emperor Gods. The purposes of the ritual are to cleanse the spirit and make merits. The group made total recovery and believed the ritual saved them. This astonishing story was circulated and more people in Phuket began to follow the ritual. A couple of years later, they decided to carry out the full ritual, they transported a lit incense stick from Jiangxi province in China to Phuket by ship, the incense stick was lit without fail throughout the whole journey. The ritual gained more interests and became the famous Vegetarian Festival you see today. 

Important practices are as follows :

1.Ew-Keng – blessing parade with flags, banner and palanquins carrying statues of Chinese gods.

2.Koi-Hoi – the fire-walking ritual across a bed of hot coals is performed by the medium on behalf of the general public to cleanse their bodies from bad spirits.

3.Koi-Han – bridge crossing ceremony, devotees cross the bridge carrying with them a piece of paper resembling a shape of a man, money and garlic chives. As they cross, the mediums will stamp the Nine Emperor Gods seal on the back of the devotees to signify that they are purified of sins and misfortunes. 

4.The Farewell Ritual – On the evening of the last day, there is a parade with a large amount of firecrackers to send off the Gods back to heaven, the parade normally ends around midnight at Sapan Hin.