> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://easythailandvisa.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # For Nine Days, Most of Phuket Eats No Meat and Some of Them Put a Knife Through Their Face - URL: https://easythailandvisa.com/phuket-vegetarian-festival-nine-emperor-gods/ - Published: 2026-07-07T13:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-19T12:28:47.000Z - Description: The strangest thing on this island happens in October, it is centuries older than the tourism, and it is worth a great deal more attention than it gets from people who photograph it. - Author: Somchai Jaidee - Tags: Temples & Culture At about seven in the morning on the second to last day, a procession came down a road in [Phuket](https://easythailandvisa.com/phuket-old-town-or-patong/) Town that I had walked twice the previous evening when it was empty, and the entire street was white. White shirts, white trousers, white powder, a wall of smoke from firecrackers, and behind that a sound from a few hundred people that I have no other word for than *resonant*. Then somebody walked past me with a metal skewer through their cheek and I stopped taking notes. Last verified 1 August 2026. ## What it is **The** [**Vegetarian**](https://easythailandvisa.com/vegetarian-vegan-food-thailand/) **Festival, also called the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, is a Chinese religious festival observed by the Phuket Chinese community,** and it is part of a wider Southeast Asian Chinese tradition rather than something that started on this island. **It runs for the nine days beginning on the first day of the ninth month of the Chinese** [**lunar calendar**](https://easythailandvisa.com/thai-lunar-calendar-buddhist-holidays/)**,** which is why the dates move every year and why any date you read in a guide from two years ago is wrong. **For 2026 the nine days run from 10 to 18 October,** with the ceremonial opening on 9 October and the closing on 19 October. Check the current dates before you book anything, because this is a lunar calendar and it shifts. **And the whole island changes for it.** The Sino-Portuguese old town becomes a white quarter, the food stalls switch to *jay* food, and for nine days a large part of Phuket does not eat meat. ## The pole, which is the bit to understand **On the evening before the festival, every participating shrine raises a tall pole called the Go Teng, and lanterns are hung from it at midnight,** and the lanterns are the signal that the nine gods have arrived. **That is the mechanics of it, and once you have it the rest makes sense.** The processions are not a parade. They are the gods being escorted around the island on a nine-day visit, and the pole goes up when they arrive and comes down when they leave. **So arrive on the first morning and you are watching a ceremony that has just started, and arrive on the last night and you are watching them say goodbye,** and those two ends are completely different from the middle. ## What actually happens **Processions leave the Chinese shrines early, usually between six and eight in the morning,** and the biggest ones in Phuket Town are at the Jui Tui shrine, on Ranong Road by the fresh market, and in Kathu. For 2026 the large processions fall on 16 and 17 October. **The participants are called *ma song* and the things they do are the reason the festival is famous.** The practices vary year to year and from person to person, and they include carrying sharp objects through the face, walking on coals, climbing blade ladders, and drawing a line of fire across the chest with a red-hot poker. **The face is painted white, often with fine red detail, and the white powder makes the procession visible from the far end of a street.** There is a great deal of firecracker smoke and it is not a performance for tourists; it is how the sound and the smoke are part of the ritual. **And the ninth night is the climax,** when the processions converge and the gods are sent off, and the biggest gatherings are at the roundabout at Saphan Hin. It is the most intense night of the nine by a wide margin. ## The food, which is the best part of it **Everything goes meat-free, dairy-free and often egg-free for the nine days,** and the stalls around the old town serve a genuinely remarkable range of plant food. **Chinese vegetarian cooking in Phuket is not a compromise version of the Chinese food next door,** it is an older, more disciplined repertoire built on mushrooms, bean curd, tofu, wheat noodles, and sweet bean pastes, and for nine days a year the best food in Phuket is at the festival. **Which is the argument for going that almost nobody makes,** and it is a better reason than a photograph. ## Etiquette, which matters more here than anywhere **Do not photograph at close range without asking, and do not ask people who are bleeding.** The piercing is a religious act happening in public, and there is a real difference between a respectful observer and somebody with a lens in somebody's face while they are concentrating. **Do not stand in the route, do not touch participants, do not help, and do not film children being prepared.** The processions move fast and a crowd that hesitates or obstructs is a genuine problem for the people carrying the ritual objects. **Do not describe it as a freak show and do not use the word for the people doing it.** They are devotees, they are making a promise to something, and most of them are there because a relative made a commitment on their behalf years ago and it was inherited into the family. **And do not treat the firecrackers as noise to complain about,** or photograph the smoke as though it were an inconvenience. It is the point. **Which leaves one genuine piece of advice:** go early, be near the route before the procession starts, and then step back. ## Where to be **Phuket Town, in the old quarter, near the Jui Tui shrine,** and the walking streets around it are the place to stand. **And other shrines hold their own processions,** at Kathu, Bang Neow, Cherng Talay in Bang Tao, Tha Rue, Sam Kong and elsewhere across the island, and the smaller ones are frequently more interesting because there is room to stand somewhere sensible. **It is free to watch all of it,** and the only costs are food and getting around, and it is the single most spectacular thing that happens on this island in a year. ## What it is, finally **It is older than the tourism, it belongs to a specific community, and it is one of the few genuine religious processions left in Southeast Asia that anybody can walk into.** **Phuket is a party island with a beautiful beach and a long list of day trips, and this is not on any of them,** because most people arrive in the month when it is not happening and leave by the time it is. **More on this** - [The Nine Days Thailand Goes Fully Vegetarian Are the Part](https://easythailandvisa.com/chinese-new-year-in-thailand/) - [Ten Days in a Temple Is Harder Than Ten Days of Anything](https://easythailandvisa.com/meditation-retreat-in-thailand/) - [Songkran in Chiang Mai, From Someone Who Has Lived Through](https://easythailandvisa.com/songkran-chiang-mai/) - [The Temples Worth the Train, and the Ones That Are Just a](https://easythailandvisa.com/thailand-temples-worth-the-train/)