What is the Phuket Vegetarian Festival?
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival (or Nine Emperor Gods Festival) happens once a year, during the ninth lunar month, and is one of the most auspicious events on Phuket island. For this unique occasion, a crowd of devotees assemble in every Chinese shrine around the island, followed by an even bigger horde of photographers who are avid to get the shot of their life. The Vegetarian Festival is an internationally known event, and while it also happens modestly in Bangkok around the same dates, it is mostly a Phuket event.
Weeks before the Vegetarian Festival events, yellow Chinese flags bloom on every roadside and intersection, especially near Chinese temples. Stages, decorations and parade accessories gather near shrines, and hundreds of food stands are erected nearby. The whole event is usually heavily sponsored.
For several days, on both sides of Phuket Town streets leading to shrines, food stands display tons of vegetarian dishes in all imaginable shapes and sizes (but often have a very similar taste). Once, we even saw a full collection of fake sushi, all made of rice and tofu! See the end of the page to read about a few popular dishes. The irony is that real vegetables are hard to find: you mostly will find noodles, deep-fried stuff, and tofu shaped like meat, but no vegetables.
Note that most non-vegetarian restaurants in Phuket Town will close for a week, but the restaurants in all beach resorts will operate normally, so donโt worry too much.
It is to be seen once in your life, but it attracts a crowd of photographers who want their share of weird photos to take back home with them, such as eerie views. So, from early morning, worshipers enter a trance at their favourite shrine and pierce their cheeks with the most extreme object possible: from a gas nozzle to a scale warship model or a car shock absorber.
Anything goes; the weirder, the better. The procession will then start, leading the devotees from one shrine to another. Along the way, local Thais of Chinese descent prepare food offerings on small tables and receive blessings.
The history of Thailandโs first vegetarian festival
Kathu district is an old phuket town that dates back to the height of the tin mining industry. At that time, this region was full of disease and jungle. Chinese people in Kathu have an answer to lift these misfortunes by calling upon each of the holy divine spirits they worship to give them their blessings and keep worshippers out of mischief and danger. Once, a Chinese opera group came to give their performance in the Kathu district. After the play had been continued for almost a year, all members of an opera group got ill, and they realised that they had not yet devoted themselves to an annual Chinese vegetarian tradition they had used to do every year back when they stayed in China. Thus, opera group members decided to draft a version of their vegetarian ceremony at their theatre because there was no expert or skilled staff to do the proper ceremony. The result was a miraculous disappearance of their illness, which indeed surprised Kathu townsfolk, so the believers adopted the tradition and have celebrated the vegetarian festival every year since.
After that, in 1855 A.D. (2398 B.E.) the proper form of Chinese vegetarian tradition was done by bringing โHiew hoeiโ (a smoke from incense sticks), scriptures, religion texts, and โLien tuiโ (name badge) from Chinaโs Kang Sai province by keeping incense sticks lit all along the way on their journey. The (supposed to be) holy items and relics came ashore at Bang Neaw pier, and the proper vegetarian tradition of Kathu folks began after that and has been carried on to this day. The traditional vegetarian festival, or called โGin pakโ (means โveggy feastโ) or โChea chaiโ (by Chinese pronunciation) by phuket people is celebrated during the new moon to 9th day of the moon on ninthmonth (according to the Chinese lunar calendar in 2008, this shall be 29 September to 7 October) every year.
The Events
When the main festival starts, a crowd of worshipers, all dressed in white or yellow, gather at Jui Tui Shrine in Phuket Town for the first event marking the ceremonyโs opening: a giant bamboo pole rising to invite divinities to come down to earth. The devotees wear bright and very ornamented outfits, and then you are set for a full week of firecrackers, parades, piercings, and vegetarian food.
Each day of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, processions start from one of the leading shrines around Phuket island. Thousands of people will pay respect to their ancestors. During this week, everyone follows ten principles: mostly wear white, do not eat meat, drink alcohol, do not have sexual activities, etc.
Program and Processions Itineraries 2024
Calendar by Tourism Authority of Thailand, Phuket Office
Principles to follow during the festival:
- Wear white clothes during the whole festival
- Do not eat meat or animal products (milk, eggs, etc.)
- Keep your body clean
- Do not drink alcohol
- Do not lie, cheat or steal
- No sexual activity during the festival
- Do not eat food with a strong smell (garlic)
- Keep and wash cooking utensils separately from those used in the event
- Mourners should not attend the festival
- Women in menstruation and pregnancy should not participate in the festival.
The purpose of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, which seems to originate in 1800, seems to differ from the Chinese event in several South-East Asia countries. The worshipers will follow the ten principles mentioned above to cleanse their spirits. At the same time, the devotees will go in procession, self-inflicting all kinds of tortures to shift other worshipersโ evil onto themselves to bring luck back to the community.
Where to Stay in Phuket Town to See the Event?
Main shrines where ceremonies occur
Ten vegetarian foods to try during the festival
โท Mee Pad Jay (เธซเธกเธตเนเธเธฑเธเนเธ) fried flat rice noodles or round egg yellow noodles with kale, one of the most popular vegetarian dishes during the festival.
โท Por Pia Tod Jay (เธเธญเนเธเธตเนเธขเธฐเธเธญเธเนเธ) Deep-fried spring rolls
โท Yen Ta Fo (เนเธขเนเธเธเธฒเนเธเน) is a pink-coloured soup with noodles served in a broth seasoned with fermented and pungent red bean curd. This dish comes with chicken or pork for the rest of the year. Read more
โท Khao Mok Kai (เธเนเธฒเธงเธซเธกเธเนเธเนเนเธ) A dish that looks like chicken rice, but the chicken is replaced with tofu
โท Khanom Jeen Jay (เธเธเธกเธเธตเธเนเธ) thin cold rice noodles served with a curry sauce and with tofu and mushrooms.
โทย Tao Hu Phad Phed: Stir fried Tofu with chili past
โจ
โท
โทย Tao Hu Pad Phed: Tofu with mushrooms
Phuket Vegetarian Festival Photo Gallery
We post the unavoidable piercing photos everyone has already seen or shot themselves here. Those photos are easy to take, follow and enjoy the parade. We wonโt even spare you the gross โtongue sliding on a giant bladeโ. Pictures of the firecracker parade are more challenging, with a tremendous amount of suffocating smoke and loud noise.
The โwalk on the fireโ is another challenging photo to capture, as you must come early to secure the best spot. Get ready to wait and feel the heat for an hour or so: you have to save a place near the burning charcoal early not to have anyone in front of you, which means sweating for at least an hour. Second: the โwalkingโ is more of a jump as fast as you can above the charcoal, so with the lack of light, taking sharp images is difficult, so get ready to freeze the moment with a well-calibrated flash (too much flash would kill the atmosphere).
Phuket Shrines Photos
More vegetarian food photos
