Half a pound of treacle

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Feeding the Heavenly Soldiers - Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012 @ Ampang - Day 6

Today is one of the days where the Ampang Nine Emperor Gods Temple conducts a feeding of the heavenly soldiers ceremony. The Five General Gods (五营将军) are leaders of spiritual armies and therefore their troops need to be fed. On the first, third, sixth and the ninth days are days where food offerings will be made to this spiritual army.

Putting a joss-stick in each of the food bucket.

The ceremony starts with the food being brought out and placed in rows in front of the temple. The food is in buckets, with traditional wooden buckets for white rice and metal buckets for the mix vegetables, fried noodles, fried vermicelli and fried yam slices. To ensure that the heavenly soldiers can get to it, a joss-stick is stuck in each of the food buckets. The mediums then go into trance and starts to inspect the food. They also do acts of self-immolation (with blunt, serrated swords), which is pretty interesting to watch.

A joss-stick each for the rice buckets.

Urgggh!! Nope, still not going...Can someone pass me some Ducolax or Metamucil please. The medium who is in a trance is about to hit his back with the sword. He does this several times and facing two different directions.

Skip, skip, skip to my Lou, skip to my Lou my darlin'. Flies in the offerings, shoo, fly, shoo! - A medium passing by the food offerings.

Besides feeding the heavenly soldiers, the deities also do an inspection of the kitchen, temple grounds, dormitories and even the opera house to make sure that everything is in order. This event is a little tough to photograph, for the medium in trance moves quickly and the activity covers the entire temple grounds. I gave up chasing them, and I salute Cheryl for being able to keep up and follow them. Click here to see her photos of the 6^th Day of this festival.

Oh shit, the health inspectors are coming! Put on your aprons and caps...Oh wait, it is just Kow Ong Yeh.

At the end of the ceremony, the medium would come out of his trance in front of the Five General Deities' altar.

The food is then distributed amongst the devotees who are staying in the dormitories, with each area getting a bucket of white rice, fried noodles, fried vermicelli, mix vegetables and fried yam slices each. We were persistently asked to partake in the food by the volunteers, as they considered the food to be blessed. The thought of eating food that has being placed in metal buckets and out in the open for hours held me back from trying. Finally, with a little courage and a sprinkle of blind faith, we took a slice of fried yam each.

The food being distributed to the devotees and volunteers. No food offerings go to waste here. Nearest to the front is a bucket of fried yam slices and next to it are fried noodles. The noodles have been left out so long that it has imbibed with the sauce and has taken the shape of the bucket that it was place in.

After the ceremony, dark clouds rolled in, and later in the evening, a downpour followed suit. This did not dampen nor lessen the number of visitors to the temple. The number of people heading to the temple, plus the traffic jam is just mind-blowing.

Dark clouds loomed over Ampang Nan Tian Gong later in the evening.

Saturday Night Temple Fever. Photo taken at 11pm. Notice the cars backed up along Jalan Merdeka towards Pandan Mewah side. The road is jammed towards the Spectrum side as well.

If you have missed this round of the feeding of the heavenly soldiers, you still one more chance to witness it in this year, which will be on the 9^th day of this festival (23^rd October 2012).

My links for the 2012 Nine Emperor Gods Festival @ Ampang Nan Tian Gong

Eve - Raising the Lantern Pole
Eve - A Royal Invitation
Day 1 - Wet, Smoky and Crowded
Day 2 - Invitation of the Finance Minister
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6 - Feeding of the Heavenly Soldiers (this post)
Day 7
Day 8 - Crossing the Bridge Ceremony
Day 9 - Fire Crossing
Day 9 - Round and Round and the rest
Day 10 - Sending the Nine Emperor Gods Off
Day 10 - Taking Down the Lantern Pole

Friday, October 19, 2012

5th Day of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012 @ Ampang

Today's post revolves around the last S or the 3Ses - Savour. What is there to savour at Ampang Nine Emperor Gods Festival, you may ask? Well plenty. The first thing to savour is the atmosphere created through the devotees that are driven by faith. The zeal and fervour of the faithful gives this temple a carnival-like appeal. Some go into a trance-like state in front of the altar whilst others bring huge offerings as tokens of gratitude. No less are those who give donations that is acknowledged by the ringing of the temple bell and drum.

By the power of...Kow Ong Yeh...I have the power! - a devotee touched by the divine during prayers.

Assistants: Oh boy, I am gonna be famous!
Priest: When will this crazy guy stop taking photos. He must have a million shots of me and the prayers.
Me: Since I am a bad photographer, I use the rule of probability to get a good shot, the probability being less than 1 in 380 shots or so for a particular scene :-p

Next thing that must be savoured, and this can take several visits, is the food. Food is everywhere, and just like the faithful, pervades every corner of the temple grounds. All nine days isn't enough to try everything edible sold here. Perhaps that is the reason why people keep coming back year after year.

Stuffed vegetables, tofu and dumplings. You will never be hungry at this festival. Just don't forget to bring your wallet.

Chinese chestnut - the smell of it roasting will make you want to grab some. Pictured here are raw chestnuts and a colander of washed gravel. The gravel is used to transfer heat evenly to the chestnut as it is being stirred in a hot wok.

Local sweet cakes that is eaten with grated coconut. A good dessert for those with a sweet tooth or wants a sugar rush.

Vegetarian mix rice at the temple fair.

Last but not the least is fun aspect of it. If you do come to Ampang Nan Tian Gong Temple, you will be amazed at how a simple festival becomes a healthy family outing as both the young and ~~old~~ gracefully matured are catered for. Also do not fret if you are not vegetarian, for the mock meat stuff are pretty good and there are stalls selling non-vegetarian stuff on the stretch of road fronting the Ampang Old Folks Home.

If you have not tried Ai-Yu jelly in Taiwan, here's the place where you can have a try.

Playing a game of hide-and-seek with the photographer. Gotcha!!! I told her that she looks pretty in the photo, like a 16-year-old princess.

If you are free on Saturday (20^th October), do visit the temple in the aftertoon (1.30ish) to see the feeding of the heavenly soldiers. To see pictures of previous year's event, visit Cheryl's site here.

My links for the 2012 Nine Emperor Gods Festival @ Ampang Nan Tian Gong

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012 @ Ampang - Day 4

Oh how quickly time flies, for it is already the fourth day of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival 2012. Next in line of the 3Ses is the smell associated with the festival. Firstly, there’s the scent of joss-sticks. The whole temple is permeated with this thick, smoky smell that is acrid and will make your eyes sting and your throat irritated.

The temple is thick with the smell of joss-sticks and sandalwood. More than enough to make you cry and your throat dry.

Yet the festival would be incomplete without this smell. Faring slightly better than the smell of incense would be the smell of sandalwood. At least it is pleasantly aromatic, though standing in front of the sandalwood urn is an invitation for dry throat and stinging eyes.

Behind the parking lot is a pit where all the discarded joss-sticks and unclaimed joss papers gets unceremoniously burned to ashes.

Then there is the ubiquitous smoky burnt smell contributed by the continuous burning of joss paper and also the joss sticks that were collected and then dumped on an open burning pit. This leaves a smoky smell in your hair and clothes like you’ve just walked out of a burning house.

The final resting ground for the dragon joss-sticks. This contributes to the 'burnt out' smell that pervades the area during this festival.

Another interesting smell that you will encounter is the smell of Chinese chestnuts being fried in ~~large~~ huge woks. The addition of sugar to the frying mix and the caramelisation of this sugar give the smoke from the roasting/frying process a nice sugary feel to it.

A man frying Chinese chestnuts...Expensive, but a rather popular snack with visitors. A fan is used to drive the smoke away.

Next is a smell that will make some people balk at the thought of eating it – the smell of stinky tofu. This year, there are six, yes SIX stalls selling stinky tofu. They smell bad, especially when they have just hit the hot oil in the wok and the heat drives the moisture and smell out. But once fried, and together with a tangy, spicy sauce, they are quite addictive and the long queues to buy them attest to their popularity.

Stinky tofy being deep fried. They smell the worst at this stage. After cooking, they are actually quite mild, like a rather strong cheese. I occasionally can smell the stinky tofu smell from down the road and thirteen floors up!

Four pieces of stinky tofu with a tangy chilli sauce cost RM 3.20. Not bad for something that smells foul when put into a wok of hot oil.

One of the 6 stalls that sell stinky tofu. This one even sells fried Durians. They have combo sets where you can get a drink with your stinky tofu or fried Durian.

Less odourous than stinky tofu but might still turn someone off is the smell of fried cempedak, or jackfruit. The ripe fruit has a smell that is reminiscent of bottled cooking natural gas, and when fried, this smell is pretty strong. There is also two stalls selling fried durians, but I could not detect the signature smell of durian emanating from these stalls.

A fried jackfruit (Cempedak) stall. The smell of battered and fried Cempedak is unique.

So when you do visit this festival here in Ampang, let your nose be your guide, hopefully to what you like to see and eat.

My links for the 2012 Nine Emperor Gods Festival @ Ampang Nan Tian Gong