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On Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:44:40 -0800, Gordon wrote:
Can you explain this "festival" to this unenlightened fool? Thanks Gordon http://www.fattygoodlander.com/scary_veggies The Phuket Vegetarian Festival apparently basically is a mix of the Chinese Vegetarian Month and the Hindu , mainly Tamil, Thaipusm Festival as practiced in Singapore and Malaysia. Most, or perhaps many. Chinese in SEA wear white and abstain from eating meat, in any form, for one month a year. I'm not sure exactly this is done but certainly some sense of atonement is evident. The more devout abstain from sex and spend at least part of the month at a Wat (Temple). The Thaipusam Festival celebrates when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (spear) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman. I'm not sure about India but in both Singapore and Phuket the piercing of the body is fairly common. In Singapore they carry a metal frame suspended from hooks through the skin of their chest for about a mile while in Phuket they are into walking about with a sword through their cheek, sewers through the arms and so on. I know a bloke in Singapore who went through it and he tells me if you have been "pure" for a month or so before the event and pray, that is not painful. The thing that seems to me rather strange is that they don't seem to bleed in any normal fashion and I've been within arms length of the participants in both Singapore and Phuket and I can assure you that it is real. The Thaipusam Festival seems to be particular to Phuket, perhaps because at one time the population was mainly Chinese, working in the tin dredging business, at least I have never seen it in any other part of the Kingdom, while the Chinese Vegetarian Month is pretty much found all over the country. My wife, for example, abstains from meat that month but thinks the guys with the swords through their cheeks are stupid. Cheers, Bruce (bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom) |
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