Vegetarian Festival

Today I would like to share the story of the annual festival in which I participate every year. The festival is called "Vegetarian Festival" or in Thai "Tesakan Gin Jae" which held in October each year.

The Vegetarian Festival is observed nationwide on a grand scale. The most famous place holding this festival is absolutely Phuket province where the most spectacular event takes place yearly. In other provinces such as Trang, Songkhla (Hat Yai) and Chon Buri (Pattaya), people of the Chinese descendants keep this festivals commonly.

The festival occurs yearly during the period from the 1st to the 9th of the 9th Chinese lunar month, which corresponds to 11-19 October. During this time almost all food shops and restaurants will fly yellow flags signifying that vegetarian food is available there. It is so convenient to have vegetarian meals during this time.

In recent years, the Vegetarian Festival has become more popular and has been increasingly observed by young people. This is so because of the belief that the observers will have better health and the purer mind and gain merits from taking vegetarian foods. This aspect, though being the main purpose of this festival, is less mentioned than the spectacular processions.

There are several interesting perspectives of the festival.

Name -- The full name of the festival is "Observe the Ten Commandments and Abstain from Meat".

Period -- The festival normally lasts for nine days from the 1st to the 9th of the 9th Chinese lunar month, as mentioned above.

Food -- People observing the festival should abstain from eating meat, animal oil and five pungent-odour vegetables, viz. garlic, onion, Chinese chives, garlic chives and tobacco. The vegetarians can have their vegetarian meals either at home or at a Chinese temple nearby.

Religious rites -- Rites are performed at the Chinese temples at various dates and times. The details will be given by the organizers beforehand.

As my Chinese tradition, I have to participate in this festival every year wiht no exception. When I was a child, I didn't like this festival that much because I was not allowed to eat any meat but I wanted to eat it so bad. However, as I grew up, I know that meat is no good for my body. I learn to love this festival and I enjoy eating vegetarian food especially mushroom and tofu. It just only 9 days a year, I can do it. Why can't you?

Thank you for the information from http://foodforhealthguide.blogspot.com/2010/09/vegetarian-festival-meritorious.html