Thousands join Chinese ceremony at Phuket Vegetarian Festival

Thousands of people yesterday joined a Chinese ceremony as part of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. About 2,200 locals and tourists gathered along the roadside during the Yu Keng parade.

The ceremony participants paid respects and lit fireworks to call upon gods, in accordance with traditional Chinese beliefs. Many of the tourists who took part in the ceremony were from Malaysia and Singapore.

Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn and his delegation also joined the parade of Chinese deities statues. Phiphat stated that the Ministry of Culture had selected the Vegetarian Festival as one of Thailand’s cultural heritages that made Phuket proud.

Phiphat said that the number of people at the ceremony was still below those of pre-Covid days. He noted, however, that things were looking up, and the number of tourists was a sign of tourism recovery.

The Vegetarian Festival in Thailand is the second largest Thai-Chinese festival of the year, after the Chinese New Year’s holiday of course. Thai-Chinese communities all over the kingdom come together to celebrate this unique festival every year for nine days and nine nights and it falls on different days every single year.

This year, the festival kicked off on September 26, with locals and representatives from Chinese shrines in the Yaowarat area attending the opening ceremony. It will run until tomorrow, October 4.

Learn more about the Vegetarian Festival by watching the video below.

SOURCE: The Phuket Express

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