The Phuket Vegetarian Festival

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/