Singapore's Hougang Dou Mu Gong Sends Off the Nine Emperor Gods Tonight, Closing Nine Days of Festival
The Nine Emperor Gods festival at Hougang Dou Mu Gong in Singapore closes tonight, Sunday, October 18, with the god-sending ceremony, ending nine days of vegetarian observance on the Double Ninth Festival itself. The temple, on Upper Serangoon Road, is among the oldest Dou Mu temples in Singapore.
The festival runs from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. Hougang Dou Mu Gong welcomed the gods on the evening of October 9; devotees have kept a vegetarian fast and visited the temple for chanting and opera performances through the week. Tonight's farewell procession, in which the deities are escorted away, is the climax of the festival.
The Nine Emperor Gods faith arrived in Southeast Asia with early Chinese migrants and remains strongest in Singapore, Malaysia and southern Thailand, where temples hold their send-off ceremonies on the same night. This year the festival's final day coincides with Chongyang.
Crowds gather along the temple frontage for the send-off, and the temple deploys volunteers to manage the flow each year.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：新加坡天福宫（资料照片）。图片来源：Basile Morin，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0。Photo: Thian Hock Keng Temple in Singapore (file photo). Source: Basile Morin, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
