Stay connected: China’s digital natives turning to online tools to pray for luck and wealth from deities like QR code donations and incense apps
- A temple-worship renaissance among China’s youth is seeing a parallel rise in digital innovation to satisfy a tech-savvy generation
- Everything from QR code donation collection boxes to temple social media accounts have sprung up in recent years in mainland China
Hiding behind her office computer, social media user, known as Tangdaoyaxiaohong, “lights up” three digital joss sticks on her phone and begins knocking on the wooden fish, or Chinese temple block, installed on her iPad with her Apple Pencil.
Meanwhile, her left hand is busy rotating the Buddhist beads on her digital watch.
Posting the video of her “cyber Buddhist practice” on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, Tangdaoyaxiaohong said this was the moment when she felt her spirit had been enhanced.
There are millions of digital worshippers like her in China. The Wooden Fish app — a virtual version of the Chinese temple block used when chanting Buddhist texts — has exploded in popularity since September last year when it launched.
Within a month, it had been downloaded more than 4 million times on China’s iOS app Store alone, online news outlet Ran Caijing reported.
The trend of digital worship coincides with a renaissance in temple attendance among Chinese youth in recent years.