But lets start at the beginning. A week or two before the festival, which I had never heard off, I was guest with Mr. Chandra and Mrs. Pearly. They thought it would be nice to visit the Tow Boo Kong temple in Butterworth.
The temple is fairly new, build in 2000 though in 1971 there was already a much smaller and humble temple. Over the years money was collected and in 2000 the temple was finished (although the front gate is still not completely finished). The temple is now one of the foremost None Emperor Gods temples in Malaysia. And trust me, it's a beautiful designed temple with some very good art work. For example, the pillars at the front door are about 3 meters high and of one stone slab. The whole pillar is one master piece of stone carving.
All the materials for the temple came from China and is crafted by Chinese artist in or from China. To me, walking the first time in the temple, it was more Chinese then I saw most of the time in China itself. The tradition is well preserved and very much alive.
During that first visit we met the Lor Chu. This year the Lor Chu was an English educated woman, the first one. The Lor Chu takes care of the most important thing in the temple: the Sacred Urn, something no one except the Lor Chu and his/her accomplished are allowed to see.
The Lor Chu, Mrs. Girlie invited us to visit the temple during the festival as much as possible as there would be a lot to do. Obviously I wanted to know what I could expect. Mrs. Girlie and Mrs. Pearly, being very well informed in Taoism, explained many details and told me that the first day the Gods would be welcomed at the beach when they descend from the stars, the Big Dipper constellation.
Other activities would include a Chinese Opera which would be performed all nine days to please the Gods who's statues would be brought outside the temple so they could watch the opera.
The fourth day would include some spectacular scenes, 9 mediums would go in trance and would skewered by a spear through their cheek. The spear, 9 feet, about 3 meters would leave no damage to the cheek, no blood would be spoiled and only a small scar would be left. One of the mediums even started dancing with the spear skewered through his mouth.
Another medium had a lot of iron hooks in his back and a spear through his mouth.
The 7th day was for the firewalk, another exercise for the devotees to cleans themselves. On all days you could see a full temple with devotees of all ages. The way the Chinese in Butterworth preserve their religion was amazing. It seemed the gods understood that if the Nine Emperor Gods festival has to survive it needs new blood, young people joining and being active in the temple.
I have visited 7 of the 9 days, did an interview with the Lor Chu at the only day without much activity. This interview you can see at www.pulau-pangkor.com/nine-emperor-gods.html
The 9th day the gods were brought back to the beach and send back to the stars by a ritual burning of the boats. It was a magical experience and something I want to experience next year.
