Interesting procession for the Nine Emperor Gods Festival last night.

Nine Emperor Gods Festival (九皇爺) is a nine-day Taoist celebration beginning on the eve of 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. I remembered that few years ago when I search for information regarding this festival, there isn’t much info available online. Recently, when I do a Google search again, I’m surprised that this festival even has its own Wikipedia page already. That’s good.

There is a temple not far from my house in Ampang which is famous for celebrating this festival and so there is a tradition in my family to worship and celebrate this festival for almost every year. However, the last time I have been to watch the procession to welcome the Nine Emperors was like many years ago and so I’m actually quite excited when I get to watch it back this year. That was last night which is the eve of the 9th lunar month in Chinese calendar. Me rushing to go back home yesterday after work is paid off with an opportunity to watch a grand and an interesting procession.

The procession actually started much earlier to ‘receive’ the arrival of the Gods from waterways. Hence, it began from the temple to the Ampang river. After the Gods arrived, the procession will be conducted in a much happening mood to welcome and bring the Gods back to the temple. That’s when spectators will line up the street to watch it as it is a good sign to bring luck and good things to one’s life. We were lucky to have arrived nearby there before 9pm and was able to find parking eventhough we were a bit far away. We had a nice spot to stand in the midst of thousand of people already there and by the time we were ready to wait, the procession arrived. Here are some images I took during the procession:

Pictures still blurry despite captured by an iPhone 5. Well, the lighting is dim over there and hence picture quality won’t be good. There were also a lot of movements, hence images not focused. This time, there were quite a lot of lion dances. However, the obvious things missing is the lack of decorated vehicles as well as the famous ‘Kou Keuk Chat’ (the Seven Long-Legged Gods or something like that). And to compensate that, the procession included a number of people dressed in cute and bulky costumes resembling many Gods like ‘God of Fortune’, etc which is certainly a surprising view for me who have not seen this kind of stuff before in this annual procession. The procession lasted about 20 minutes.

A carnival-like atmosphere pervades the temple throughout the nine-day festival. Most devotees stay at the temple, eat vegetarian meals and recite continuous chanting of prayer. The street leading up to the temple is also filled with many hawker stalls, attracting also the youngsters and the scene is just like a bustling ‘pasar malam’. It is believed that there will be rain throughout the nine days of celebration. And yes…it is really raining in these days. My family and I would be going to the temple again this Sunday to pray and burn joss-sticks for the Nine Emperor Gods before the festival ends next Wednesday when the deities will be sent back to the river to mark the end of the celebration.

(Copyrights reserved to all the images in this post)

This is the time of the year again for the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Ampang

I didn’t realize that this is the time of the year again for the celebration of Nine Emperor Gods Festival until I was told by my eldest sister today. Mid-Autumn Festival for the year was over two weeks ago, and that means now is already the ninth month of Chinese lunar calendar. The first nine days of the month will be dedicated to the Nine Emperor Gods Festival annually. And so, I realized I missed the chance to observe the festival’s parade yesterday’s night.

On the eve of the festival, there would be a parade conducted to ‘welcome’ the deities of the legendary Nine Emperor Gods. It consists of multi-colored flag displays, drums with lion and dragon dances, physically-challenging performances, and series of beautifully-lit and decorated trucks, etc. It is watched annually by massive crowd lining up the road in Ampang’s new village, leading up to the Nine Emperor Gods Temple. The last time I watched the parade was like four or five years ago.

Today, right after dinner, we went to visit the temple for the festival that started today and will ends in nine days as mentioned earlier. The place is best to visit at night as it would not be that hot and that the surrounding atmosphere would be much happening at night due to presence of night market around the temple which is able to attract more people of younger demographics in recent years. All that leads to crazier traffic congestion along the narrow roads leading to the temple. That is expected.

The temple’s icon must be the main altar building full of intricate traditional Chinese design flanked with two pagoda towers. Last year’s appearance of the towers during the festival looked much appealing with the colour-changing lights. This year, it stays to its traditional plain lighting, and I wonder why. It’s full of people, and I sneaked into the main altar to pray for a short moment before leaving with my shirt covered with smell of smoke and ashes, and also eyes feeling uncomfortable by the excessive burning of joss sticks. People are pushing to enter into the main altar.

Eventhough Nine Emperor Gods Festival is not considered a major Chinese festival, but it does receives continuous attention every year and its popular temple in Ampang is certainly prepared to welcome huge crowd of people (and I’m one of them) at this time of the year.

Movie review: Percy Jackson – Sea of Monsters (2013)

When I browsed through new movies on cinema website recently, I find that there isn’t any appealing films up to my preference. There is only one that had a bit of my attention, which is ‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’. However, that one is a sequel. For this reason, I purposely find and watched its predecessor back; ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’ released three years ago. The first one is a great and engaging film, and I do have interest on action-adventure films like this that are based on Greek mythology (involving Olympus gods like Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, etc).

‘Percy Jackson’ films are basically teenager version of ‘Wrath or Clash of the Titans’. The titular character of the former is a demigod, son of Poseidon while the main character in the latter is the son of Zeus. Very much similar, but ‘Percy Jackson’ movies are much lighter and relevant to even young children too. In ‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’, a group of half-blood (demigods) led by Percy embarks on a quest to the Sea of Monsters to find the mythical Golden Fleece to restore their dying safe haven (a tree that protect the Half-Blood Camp gets poisoned, hence the barrier fading out) while trying to stop an ancient evil, Kronos (father of Olympus) from rising. None of the Gods (Zeus, Hades or Poseidon) appears in this movie unlike the first one.

This sequel truly did not disappoints its predecessor and it delivers well from where it ends in the first story. It will certainly provides a good platform for future sequels too on which I’m looking forward to. This time, the group of heroes (Percy, Grover and Annabeth) gets bigger with additional new characters, Tyson (Percy’s half brother whom is a cyclop) and Clarisse (a very proud female demigod). Both are very interesting characters and made up for a better and much exciting adventure we are looking for from this kind of movie. There are also more solid action-packed sequences and great visual effects displayed which is a very important aspect for a mythical adventure film.

The main casts especially Logan Lerman delivered brilliant performance. This time, there would be also praise for more comedy-filled moments, most notably the lightning-speed taxi with the three eyeless drivers, and also the part where Grover pretends to be a cyclop and wear a gown. However, there are also bad points I wish to highlight from this movie. Since the movie is titled ‘Sea of Monsters’, I am hoping for more scenes on that sea itself, means harder obstacles there, like maybe fighting huge sea serpent there or uncontrollable tsunami. However, it seems nothing much happened in that quite a brief scene besides than being consumed into the ‘monster’s stomach’ and the movie gives itself the title of ‘sea of monsters’. On the other hand, I also wish for more life-threatening and intense battle with the resurrected Kronos, the giant ancient horrifying evil, and yet, it gets defeated so easily by Percy in the end. Slightly disappointed by the final battle.

Nevertheless, this movie still delivers with entertaining adventure, solid plot, clean storytelling, great visuals and good acting. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ a total of 7.5. For the first one, ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’, I would give 7.4. It’s usually harder for a sequel to perform better or similarly to that of its original, but this one is an exception.

(All images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)

A short night walk at Qao Wong Yeh Temple

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.

What’s happened…; Nine Emperor Gods Festival

Sorry for late posting. I’m kinda busy with assignments for last weekend.

The  annual nine days festival of Nine Emperor Gods based on Taoism had just ended. It falls from 1st day till the 9th day of the 9th month of Chinese lunar calendar. Every year, as usual, I will attend the festival at Ampang’s Nan Tian Kong Temple for worshipping and celebrating the festival together with my family.

This year, is the same. However, this is the first time I’m going there by night. It’s more lively and happening at night. The street leading to the temple are lined with hawker stalls selling chow tau foo, fried stuff, fried cashew, drinks, etc. It is crowded with people, more compared to morning, and it looks more like a night market.

This is also the only year I did not attend the night parade which the gods are invited and celebrated with processions and parade of dragon and lion dances, etc. The reason is that the parade is held much earlier, that many don’t even know that, due to commemoration of the opening of the reconstructed temple. I heard that the parade for this year is more grand with addition of even fireworks!

Back to the worshipping thing, the only thing that makes me uncomfortable is the crowded situation in the temple where all the people put their burning joss sticks. The whole space is full of smoke…and yes, smoke and even heat detectors are not recommended here…lol…but I can see some beautiful Chinese architecture in there, and even on the outlook of the building with two pagodas at the side.

I have to quickly rushed in, burned the candles, placed them on the right place, burned the joss sticks which are quite a lot in numbers, placed them on wherever place dedicated for the gods, and even having some time to snap some qick photos. After that, my whole shirt is full of those ashes from the joss sticks, tears dropped from my painful eyes, redness on my hand after being in contact with hot dropping ashes. It’s complicated and mess up in there. I would not be going in if I’m not doing the worshipping thing.

Anyway, it’s an annual thing, not a monthly or daily thing…hence, still okay to it…I can see something interesting from it too…I can see different type of activities, I can see the setting of the Ampang New Village, I can see architecture of the temple, I can experience the culture of Taoism….hence, it gave quite a lot of advantages too….why not going for it?! However, it’s over now….have to wait for next year.

Nine Emperor Gods Festival Night…

I remember, one year ago, earlier, I have written a post (among the first few posts of this blog) on this festival night, the Nine Emperor Gods Festival (九皇爺). This year will be the same.

Around these days, rain will fall, to show sympathy and mercy to the Nine Emperor Gods. There are many myths behind the origin of this festival. Don’t you notice that rain falls everyday currently (it’s not related to monsoon season, because this festival is celebrated in Chinese lunar calendar, so different date every year).

This year, as usual, followed my cousin and my aunt to watch the parade which organized to invite the Nine Emperor Gods to Earth, down from river (in this area, Ampang River). The parade is very grand, usually 10 – 20 minutes long, with lion and dragon dance, ‘long-leg seven’, etc,.. This festival attracts a lot of people, and the streets involved on the parade are fully crowded.

This year, we went to that area late, but we were still able to watch the final parts of the parade, the most important one, when we saw the arrival of Nine Emperor Gods ( an item caught from the river, believed to be possessed by the Nine Emperor Gods, hidden by the cloth).

Some pictures taken at the night (still manage to capture)

Lion dance performing rituals in front of a ritual table:

The dragon, fly until so fast…

So many people, crowded…and being pushed…

Another type of lion dance..

The ‘tall-leg seven’ gods…these performers can stand like that, and walk for a long distance…great

those decorated kind of things…duno what it is called…

oso duno why they shake this thing…we have to pray as this one comes forward…

finally, the Nine Emperor Gods, hidden by the cloth…I want to see what is inside…! What the man is carrying? So many things covered it up…this one also we have to pray, the main and the final…

Time to leave, sure traffic jams..wow..Ampang area has changed a lot, so many new apartments, shoplots, commercial buildings, and the Ampang Waterfront.