March 1, 2009
FIRECRACKERS rained down like hail, filling the street with sulfurous billows. Young men, dressed in white, waved towels, trying to keep the explosives away from the black-faced god seated in the ornate sedan chair that some of them held aloft. There, in the center of it all, Phuket Town fell away; the formerly opulent Portuguese-Chinese mansions and rows of boxy concrete shops faded as the hot morning sun swooned before clouds of acrid smoke.
Participants in Phuket’s annual Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods follow a strict set of moral guidelines during its course, refraining from drinking alcohol, fibbing, killing, gossiping and, among other things, eating meat. Yet if the festival is known at all outside the region, it is for this small detail: In English, it is usually called the Phuket Vegetarian Festival.
