Thais go vegetarian to 鈥榳ash away sins鈥
Print Edition
Thailand鈥檚 annual vegetarian festival kicked off this week, a time of year when the Southeast Asian country鈥檚 meat-heavy dishes get a vegetarian makeover.
Known locally as 鈥楾eskan Gin Jay,鈥 or vegan festival, it takes place over 10 days and began over 150 years ago on the tourist island of Phuket, some 840km south of Bangkok.
Thailand is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world and the festival is a time when Thai-Chinese, often third or fourth generation Chinese who grew up in Thailand, observe 10 days of abstinence.
Eating meat, drinking alcohol and having sex are thought to be vices and pollutants of the body and mind to be cut out entirely by the truly devoted.
鈥淓ating vegetarian food during the festival purifies your mind and washes away your sins,鈥 said Lamyu Manolai, 59, a food vendor. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like going to a temple.鈥
In Bangkok鈥檚 Chinatown, yellow flags baring the words 鈥減urified鈥 and 鈥渕erit鈥 flutter along Yaowarat Road, the area鈥檚 main thoroughfare, a smorgasbord of vegan and vegetarian food stalls.
The food sold here is often made from meat substitutes including soy proteins made to look like the real thing, to varying degrees of success. Fish maw soup, the neighborhood鈥檚 signature dish, made with bamboo mushrooms, looks convincingly like its meat-based original.
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