Saturday, October 4, 2008

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival

After the celebration of the Moon Cake festival on the 8th month of Chinese Lunar calendar,now come another big festival where the Taoist Chinese community celebrate the Nine Emperor Gods Festival on the 9th month of the Chinese Lunar calendar.This Nine days festival will have thousand of devotees come to the temple to pray and wish for their well being..For this occasion,the number '9' will be the auspicious number since everything they use will be in relation with the number '9' such as the 9th month,9 days,9 Gods and even the dragon that crafted on the wall will be nine dragons as well..This is a big and most respectful annual festival that those who want to participate and work for this festival must be volunteer and strictly Vegetarian for this 9 days festival..
The building of the temple,mostly hand crafted and most of the material were import from China,and approximately cost over a million ringgit.It started construction work in year 2000 and is mostly finished by now. It is located in the heart of Butterworth called Raja Uda,a place that is always pack with people in the morning and night,it is a place where you can get every daily needs like foods,cloths and daily cooking utensil.

The main entrance of the temple.

Before it start,the in charge person or we so called the managing trustee which is annually elected need to do all the preparation and planning for this coming festival.This is a heavy responsibilities for the trustee and it also is supposed to bring a lot of fortune and prosperity for the trustee.
The 1st day of the festival will see the managing trustee bring the statue of the God from the temple to the beach where the Gods descended from the other world or heaven,and bring it back to the temple.

The Inside Temple.

This is the special built inner sanctuary where they keep the the statue of the Nine Emperor God and strictly not allow for other people to enter except the managing trustee.

There are a lots of events taking place in the day and night,whilst people are praying,there will be mediums go in trance.During their trance it seemed they become complete different people. With their eyes closed, even their faces look completely different from earlier that day.The believe is that in trance they are taken over by deities and are protected from any harm.

The Medium in their trance.

The prayers are getting blessing from the medium.

The Dragon Spitting Fountain At The Temple.



The Unique Design Ceiling of the Temple.

The Night Time Parade At Raja Uda.
The Parade normally will be held on the 5th day of the festival and start around 7pm,it will take around 2 hours to finish the route from Raja Uda through Bagan Ajam then back to the temple again.Attached below are some picture and video taken from the parade.




The piercing of 9 feets long Stainless Steel rod through their cheek.


Some decorated Flower cars.

The Video :
The Flower car Parade.

The Dragon Dance

The Piercing

The Spinning.

The Final Parade

Playing With Hot Oil (2007Clip)


There are still some other event like walking through burning charcoal and climbing the blade ladder which unable to cover due to time constraint.May update this post if got any additional info.That's for now and enjoy the post..

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