The weird festivals

Today is the first day of the ninth month in lunar calendar. A Chinese temple in my hometown is having its annual Nine Emperor Gods celebration. It's a nine-day celebration fill with chanting, parade, Cantonese opera and karaoke performances. Vegetarian food donated by the local community (cooked by a team of volunteers) will be served throughout the festivity. Highlight of the festival is the "walk over fire pit with bare foot" ceremony on the last day (picture), it always amazed me how people don't get hurt by walking over the fire! I dare to try!

I was home last year during this time of the year, it has been over 10 years since I last participated in the festival. It brought back my childhood memories. It is one of the biggest things in town, so most of the kids will go to the temple as soon as they get off school to hang out with friends, there are Cantonese Opera performances during the day too.

As we get older, we hang out at the temple during night time instead. Besides the free vegetarian food served at the cafeteria, there are also temporary food stores set up in the temple. The most popular food is poh-piah (vegetarian roll).

Here are 10 weird festivals around the world:

1. La Tomatina, Buol, Spain (August)

2. Cooper's Hill Annual Cheese Rolling, Gloucester, England (May)

3. Frog Festival, Rayne, Louisiana (Labor Day Weekend)

4. Sao Joao Festival, Porto, Portugal (June)

5. Golden Shears Sheep Shearing Festival, Masteron, New Zealand (March)

6. Moose Dropping Festival, Talkeetna, Alaska (July)

7. Songkran Festival, Chiang Mai, Thailand (April)

8. Ivrea Orange Festival, Piemonte, Italy (February)

9. Cow painting festival, Luxembourg City (April-September)

10. Garlic Festival, Gilroy, California (July) read more