Blood and blades

Thailand celebrates vegetarian festival

PHUKET:

Soon after sunrise on the Thai island of Phuket, a swordsman chants an incantation and slowly slides the first of three blades through the right cheek of the woman sitting calmly below him.

Soon, blood is dripping off her face, and red-stained tissues are scattered over the ground.

The ceremony at the October 2-11 vegetarian festival in Phuket's old town aims to cleanse "sinful" souls. Sirinnicha Thampradit, 29, is believed to be a medium that a god has selected to bridge the connection between human and divine.

"I felt weak, I felt numb and I couldn't control anything," Sirinnicha, who woke before dawn to prepare for the ceremony, told AFP.

"One minute I was crying, another I was laughing," she said, adding that possession usually happens during the annual vegetarian festival.

Despite the blood, Sirinnicha, who has a 1.5-inch scar visible on both cheeks from her previous piercings, said she felt no pain during the procedure.

"It's because I 100 per cent believe in god, and he has been protecting me for more than 10 years," she said, recalling the hours-long ordeal when a god possessed her for the first time when she was 17 years old.

The wounds heal on their own within seven days, said Sirinnicha, who believes all her family members have been chosen as mediums. The ceremony, known internationally for its graphic piercings, is held inside the Jor Soo Gong Naka shrine in honour of the "Nine Emperor Gods" in the Taoist religion.

Participants shun meat and other indulgences, such as gambling and alcohol, to purify their bodies before offering them to deities.

The event, which generated more than nine billion baht ($272 million) in 2023 according to Phuket's tourism body, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

"Piercing is the gods' command, and these objects represent their supernatural power," Kaweepiphat Thomya, the shrine's mediums coordinator, told AFP. AFP