Lim (right) and other volunteers pasting joss paper onto a bamboo pole at Tow Boe Keong Kew Ong Tai Tay Temple in Gat Lebuh Macallum, George Town.
GEORGE TOWN: For the past 120 years, volunteers at the Tow Boe Keong Kew Ong Tai Tay Temple would go into the jungle in search of giant bamboo for the Nine Emperor Gods Festival.
This year, they managed to find one in Bukit Gambier and the bamboo pole will be put up outside the temple for the nine-day festival which starts tomorrow.
Some 20 volunteers were seen applying the finishing touches to the pole yesterday.
Among them was Lim Chin Joo, 60, who was pasting joss paper onto the pole.
“The bamboo pole will be joined to another pole made out of a ship’s mast which is solid and strong.”
The total height of the pole would then be over 100 feet (30.5m).
“It will be hoisted up until the festival ends on Oct 18,” Lim said.
The temple in Gat Lebuh Macallum facing the seafront has been celebrating the occasion for more than 120 years.
It is believed that the tall pole will facilitate the deities’ descend to Earth during the celebrations.
The pole will be raised today after a prayer ceremony to invoke and welcome the nine emperors.
On the evening of the ninth day of the festival, which falls on Oct 17, a boat filled with prayer paraphernalia, rice, sugar, vegetarian dishes and other essential stuff will leave for the Tan Jetty in Weld Quay for the sending-off ceremony.
A check in Madras Lane yesterday showed that vegetarian food hawkers have started setting up makeshift tents and booths.
Trader Lee Eng Kok, 57, whose father started the business at the spot 59 years ago, said his stall would operate 24 hours throughout the celebration.
“My father started it here in 1959. I took over about 30 years ago. Family members will come together and help to cook and prepare the vegetarian food to be served to customers,” he said, adding that thousands of devotees would throng his stall every year.
Assisted by his son Keh Khai, 31, Eng Kok said there would be over 30 dishes sold at his stall.
Devotees will go on a nine-day vegetarian diet for the festival.
The festival celebrated annually from the first day to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month in the Chinese calendar, observed by Taoists, is dedicated to the nine sons of Dou Mu, the Goddess of the North Star, who is believed to control the Books of Life and Death.
Devotees believe the deities will arrive through the waterway.
Processions are usually held from temples to the river or seashore as a symbolic gesture.
~News courtesy of The Star~
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