Festival Day (Tesagan Gin Je)

Nine Emperor Gods Festival

I had really wanted to visit Phuket Island this year for the Je Festival, the nine-day Taoist festival in which the Chinese-Thai honor the Nine Emperor Gods by abstaining from meat and alcohol, and consuming vegan dishes and making merit in Chinese rituals. Thailand's most famous island province is the place where this festival is most widely celebrated, but I wasn't able to make it this year (and some of the festivities had been cancelled anyway due to COVID-19).

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2014/09/vegetarian-festival.html

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2018/10/je-vegetarian-festival.html

Bangkok celebrates this festival too! This week, tons of yellow flags have gone up, marking food as "je". I kind of overlooked the festival this year, until my fiancee and I just happened to be in Chinatown and noticed a huge gathering at Wat Mangkon Temple (the city's central Chinese temple).

We had never seen the festival in Chinatown before, and it was huge! Of course, it's a Taoist festival, and while it has made its way into Thai culture, it's mostly celebrated amongst the Chinese-Thai population.

A sort of market had been set up in front of the temple, with vendors giving away (for an optional donation) vegetarian dishes, soy milk, and other je-appropriate Chinese snacks.

There were also some extra areas of the temple which we had never seen opened up before! I guess there are rooms, shrines, and chapels which the temple only opens to visitors for festival days. I think it might be interesting to start visiting Wat Mangkon on the other popular Chinese festivals.

We immediately noticed that nearly everyone was wearing all white for the festival. There was a special chapel open for a festival blessing, but you could only go inside if you were dressed in white. Since we didn't know that there was going to be anything special going on that day, we weren't prepared. Still, we got to walk around and explore the rest of the temple grounds.

Inside the temple, things were going on as normal. People were lighting incense and making offerings of ghost paper, fruit, and other gifts. 

Outside, however, there was an exciting festival atmosphere. We were really intrigued, and decided to join in one of the cultural blessings to learn more about it.

We made a 100 baht donation, and received a  red sheet of thin paper printed in Chinese characters and with the face of the Buddha. We also got a little yellow prayer pendant, also made of thin paper. We wrote the names of our family on both papers, along with wishes for health and wealth.

The red sheet was folded up and tied onto the skirt of a large statue of a Chinese deity. 

The yellow pendant was stuck into a large krathong along with dozens of others. 

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2019/11/loi-krathong-at-survarnabhumi-airport.html

I am not sure of the exact ritual, but I guess that the krathongs may be used in the upcoming Loy Krathong Festival, and floated down the river along with our wishes.

The city's Chinese-Thai families had come to Yaowarat and the temple in order to leave elaborate donations and offerings for the festival. We didn't do that, but I was impressed by the ornateness of some of the offerings that had been left.

The most exciting part, though (in my opinion), was the je food festival which was set up on the road surrounding the temple. It is the city's largest vegetarian food festival, and there are so many dishes that you can only find during this period!

We bought a bag of steamed green vegetables, a bag of dried mushroom jerky (super good!), and two clay pots filled with steamed rice, ginko, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and other great veggies.

They were also selling all sorts of spring rolls, fried tofu, and other delicious snacks/

It was hard not to try a little bit of everything!

I don't generally join in the nine-day vegetarian festival, but it is always fun for me to try je dishes during this time. I think a lot of people imagine Thai food to be mostly vegetarian, but that's just not true at all. Most Thai dishes tend to be fairly meat-heavy. We've even had vegetarian teachers who have come to Bangkok, and realized that it was just too hard to keep to their diet for the year. 

During this festival, though, vegetarian food is easy to find. It is delicious, too! They have found all sorts of ways to make this special festival food extra tasty.