Chinese young pray gods for good
By admin on 2014-12-26

As grad student hopefuls find themselves in the throws of entrance exams, many are turning to the gods for blessings. And apparently the gods have Web sites.

Instead of imploring deities the traditional way through prayer and meditation in incense-filled temples, students are resorting to the convenience of digital shrines, logging on for the "exam god" (kaoshen) and virtual Buddhist Wofo Temple or wofosi, an attempt at phonetically imitating the English word "offers."

The Web sites are set up by independent users on facebook copycat renren.com and forum giant tianya.cn. They have already seen hundreds of thousands of visitors in just a few weeks, asking for blessings on everything from small quizzes to the Graduate Entrance and Civil Servant Exams.

"Dear Buddha, as for my English test tomorrow… please take care of it. And if you are busy, forget it, but please absolutely remember my math examination the day after tomorrow. I am so devout to you, you know," said Wang Yanyan at Shandong Institute of Business and Technology in her post on renren.com.

"Bless me getting a good job, and more offers coming to me, thank you, Buddha," writes Cheng Huiyi at Tianjin University of Finance and Economics.
Even some celebrities have been virtually enshrined. Temples dedicated to Li Yuchun, winner of the popular televised singing contest Super Girl in 2005, are giving the term "Chinese idol" new meaning.

"We choose to pray to her for passing our exams because Li was so lucky for winning and how quickly her successful career took off," said Xiao Chun, a communication engineering senior at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Li Yuchun's disciple.

But not everyone is turning to binary Buddhas, feeling the whole thing a little kitschy.

"If all university students pinned their hopes on the gods, that would be kind of ridiculous," said Liu Xin, an English junior at Shandong University, "One's harvest and success definitely come from hard work."

But like many viral trends online, virtual shrines are a product of an excess of students "idle" time.

"I think most are just bored and playing around," said Li Tang, a physics graduate from the University of Science and Technology Beijing.
"They should use that time to read books and prepare for their exams in real life instead," he added.