Experiences labelled with 'the vegetarian festival'
You'd have to be a pretty avid meat-eater to associate vegetarianism with acts of self-mutilation. Either that or you'd have to be at the Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, known as Kin Jay to the locals. During the first nine days of the ninth lunar month, the local Chinese community congregate to eat vegetarian dishes and preform astonishing displays of ritual purification to their gods. Entranced in worship, devotees of the Vegetarian Festival known as Ma Song, will invite the gods into their bodies. By channeling supernatural powers and performing acts of self torture, the participants try to shift evil from individuals to themselves, and usher in good fortune for the community. The Ma Song show off their powers by climbing ladders with bladed rungs, puncturing ...
