9 Emperor God Festival

The 9 Emperor God festival, which falls on the first 9 days of the 9 month on the lunar calendar, will be starting in another 10 more days on the 11th of October till the 19th October this year.

This Taoists ritual is to celebrate the return of the 9 Emperors deity from heaven to earth, where devotees will stick to a strict vegetarian diet for 3 or 9 days. And the devotees must be "clean" in all means during throughout the 9 days festivals, staying in the temple and must all be dress in traditional white attires. This strict laws must be followed in order to offer the best and sincere prayers to the deities, because the belief is that all these deities to be very clean, and rain are expected throughout the 9 days celebrations because their "walkway" need to be wash first upon the deities arrivals.

The belief is that the deities will be arriving on earth from the waterways, so to welcome them and to send them back to heaven ceremony will be held on the sea shore, beaches, or riverways. From the first day of the celebration, each deity will be arriving one a day until the 9 day, where the 9th deity will be arrives. And those selected devotees will be in trance condition to invite and to send back these deities.

During the last 3 days of the festival, celebrations will be held to its climax. Devotees will be flocking the temples, offering prayes to the deities praying for health and wealth. Many people will be doing business outside the temple, offering praying items, foods, and the most famous "MI KU", a type of desert make from flour to form a figure of a tortoise, which repersent longelivety.

Well, I will be making my way back to my wife hometown in Taiping soon to celebrate this festival, and so far this is the 5th times in a row I'm offering prayers to the deities. Hoping that I will manage to capture as much photos as possible and to upload it to this blog. Keep tune on ok.........