Every year, the Vegetarian Festival transforms Bangkok food culture for a fleeting handful of days.
So it might seem strange when three weeks after it ends, we wake to find those yellow flags everywhere and the festival begun anew, like we’re all trapped in some kind of space-time wrinkle or a Bill Murray film.
The explanation is simple: Next month will be repeated.
Why? Well that’s simple. Anyone who’s counted the number of new moons since the previous 11th month of the lunar calendar corresponding to the Winter Solstice and the next would realize there were 13 new moons and therefore the first month with an indeterminant principal term would simply be repeated.
It’s called Chinese Leap Month, and this year the ninth lunar month will be repeated for the first time since 1832.
Of course we also hoped this would mean two Halloweens, but apparently it doesn’t work that way.
It does mean however the Vegetarian Festival, a proper Chinese-Thai tradition, which starts Wednesday and ends Oct. 2, will be repeated starting Oct. 24 through Nov. 2.
Fortunately for the nation’s blood banks, the veggie blood riot of Phuket’s Nine Emperor Gods Festival will only be held once.
The double-dose of tesagan kin je is good news for sellers.
Yuthasak Poomsurakul of CP All Public Co.Limited, which adds seasonal je items to its 7-Eleven convenience stores, said the market for vegetarian food has expanded each year as the ranks of serious and part-time vegetarians grow, according to state media.
The University of Thai Chamber of Commerce has forecast the double-veggie-whammy will bring in more than THB50 billion this year.
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