The Phuket Vegetarian Festival, also known as the Nine Emperor Gods Festival, is an annual Taoist celebration observed primarily by Phuket’s Chinese community. Lasting nine days, the festival is marked by strict dietary observances, ritual purification, and a series of public ceremonies and processions.

Throughout the festival, participants abstain from meat and follow prescribed practices intended to purify both body and mind. Central to the celebrations are the mah songs (“horses of the gods”) – spirit mediums believed to become possessed by deities during ritual ceremonies.

In states of trance, the mah songs perform acts of extraordinary bodily endurance, including piercing their cheeks with a wide range of objects, walking across hot coals, and climbing ladders made of sharp blades. Within the ritual context, these acts are understood as expressions of devotion and self-sacrifice, as well as a means of channeling spiritual protection and blessings for the wider community.

Processions move through the streets as images of the Nine Emperor Gods are carried on palanquins before returning to the temples. Firecrackers are set off continuously along the route, their sound believed to repel harmful spirits and clear the way for the deities.