It started with the raising of a pole at Chinese temples around the country which signaled the nine Chinese gods to come down to earth. When Chinese race became a part of Thai people, you can't categorize Chineses from Thais and it's even hard to find pure original Thais. This festival becomes a famous Chinese-Thai culture. In Phuket, this event even is promoted to be one of a cultural tourism.
Yellow is the symbol of Jay festival.
Is Jay festival and vegetarianism the same?
The answer is "Not Really."
The main of vegetarianism and Jay are similar. It's not to eat meat but only vegetable. While vegetarianism is a way to remain healthy, there's religion hidden in Jay and it's a little bit different from vegetarianism.
Jay vegetarian is not allowed to eat product of animalkind such as egg, milk, butter, fishsauce and etc, also some strong-scent plant such as garlic, celery and onion. In contrast, from the belief in Buddhist goddess of mercy, people who join the festival are allowed to eat oyster.
Besides eating rules, Jay people also have to follow Buddhist five or eight precepts.
Jay festival is annual festival in October and it lasts 7-10 days.
For me, I started to be a very-temporary vegetarian since when I was the third year in my bachelor school. As being unreligious, what I do is just to follow the eating rules but I don't do those Buddhist precepts strictly.
When I firstly joined it, it's just because I wanted to avoid having meat and to detox.
You may wonder... if that's the reason, so why I don't just eat vegetarian food in any time or any period, it doesn't have to be only this occasion. Well, my excuse is joining Jay festival is an easy idea to start being vegetarian since the food can be found everywhere.
When I join the festival, it means... no prawn, no milk tea, no cheese, no beef, no milk chocolate, no yoghurt, no cereal and milk in the morning but only soy milk, vegetable and my dislike thing...... tofu.
Well.... I also confess that I never succeeded in joining Jay event all of those 7 or 10 days. My pateince always was broken before the end of the festival.
Another confession...... during this period, I would list what I want to eat after the festival is over. Funny..... something that I rarely want to eat would also appear in my list. There would be BBQ, KFC, pizza with large cheese, deep fried chicken and etc....
Well.... I also confess that I never succeeded in joining Jay event all of those 7 or 10 days. My pateince always was broken before the end of the festival.
Another confession...... during this period, I would list what I want to eat after the festival is over. Funny..... something that I rarely want to eat would also appear in my list. There would be BBQ, KFC, pizza with large cheese, deep fried chicken and etc....
If you see the yellow flags, you can be sure that the food is vegetarian.
This year is the 5th year that I join the festival. I prepared myself to be vegetarian by having a large Japanese-food meal as if the food would last in my stomach till the end of the festival.
As being an unstrict one and wanting to challenge my patience, I will be trying my best not to hunger for meat....
Let's see how many days I can get thru this year.
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