I have just realized that the Nine Emperor Gods Festival (annual Chinese festival) for this year began few days earlier already and would last for 9 days. For every year, my family would be paying a visit to the Qao Wong Yeh Temple at Ampang for the worshipping. This year is not an exception, but for this time, we just went there to enjoy the lively atmosphere of the temple area including its surroundings, and so we didn’t worship for this year, as I came this time with my sister.
As expected, there was a very huge crowd from all directions to the temple, beautifully decorated with colour-changing lights which was added a year ago. Another interesting feature added is the long carving wall as the boundary of the temple replacing the former fences. The night market is a local addition to the festival where many stalls selling souvenirs, worshipping items, food, shirts, balloons were set up along the streets as well as roads nearby. Houses nearby would offer their parking area for high number of visitors turnout for the 9-days festival…and of course comes with a price! I didn’t actually went into the main altar. The picture below is the view in the altar…so crowded and smoky…looking at this, you wouldn’t want to enter already…
It’s already been a year….the time when I visited the temple last year for the festival (at night too) appears like it just happened yesterday (and it’s actually exactly a year ago based on Chinese lunar calendar). Going to the temple during the night would be a better choice with more things to see, but the traffic also worsen definitely. For the tradition of the festival, for me, to be honestly, I don’t have the belief on the existence of the Nine Emperor Gods which is based on Taoist culture. Worshipping it last time annually is just a duty done every year, and my family dropped the tradition of worshipping beginning this year. It is funny that once you put your burning joss sticks on the pot, a few second later it would be removed as the pot would be full quickly. So, there is like no point for placing joss sticks there for worshipping.
The night market there is too crowded and hence we went to another night market near my home where there is no congestion especially when it’s already late (over 10 pm). Actually, we just spend walking at the temple and its surrounding for less than 30 minutes, and the truth is we actually spent most of the time in the car on the way to the temple as all the roads leading to the temple is very congested. Anyway, it’s still nice to see many Chinese people are still rooted to their tradition of visiting the temple and worshipping for the festival. Now, there are many youngsters seen there due to the night market, and also photographers who wanted to capture the beauty of the temple and the atmosphere of the surrounding.
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