CHINA: Thousands of Chinese pray for good luck in the New Year

Visitors flocked to Beijing's Baiyun (pron: baiee ywin) Temple on Sunday (February 18) -- the first day of China's Lunar New Year. Smoke from thousands of burning incense sticks wafted towards the sky, carrying with it the prayers of thousands of Chinese hoping for an auspicious Year of the Pig. Also known as Spring Festival, the Lunar New Year celebrates the beginning of the ploughing season and warmer weather to come. At Baiyun Temple - Beijing's largest Taoist Temple, built in 1224 by Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan - visitors are directed into orderly lines to wait for their turn to throw incense on the burner. They are hoping to cash in on what is supposed to be a particularly auspicious year - according to the Chinese zodiac and fortune tellers, it is a "golden pig" year that falls once every 60 years. "(Burning incense) is a practice of Taoist believers. They pray for peace and luck, and hope to be blessed with family peace, and social unity and harmony," said Taoist Priest Fu, who has been serving at the Baiyun Temple for "a long time". Authorities cancelled the incense burning tradition last year because of fire hazard concerns. This year the flames have been relit, and temple workers toss the sticks onto the burner as visitors watch from behind a barrier. Lighting incense and praying for good fortune would have been unthinkable up until a few decades ago because such acts were branded as feudal superstitions by China's secular Communist leaders. But most of these visitors are not practicing Taoists. Like the majority of their fellow Chinese, they are more pragmatic than devout. "(I hope) I can be blessed with happiness and my dreams will come true. But as for whether I believe in religion...as long as my wish is realised - that is what I believe," said Ling Bencui (pron: leeng buhn tsway), who works in Beijing. Liu Yang (pron: lee-oh yahng) is here to pray for success in his media business. Buddhist? Taoist? He says he is both. "For burning incense there are not a lot of formalities. If you express your sincerity then that is all there is to it. Chinese people have several beliefs - mainly Buddhism and Taoism. Taoism is a sacred religion - in people's hearts it is the purest Chinese religion," said Liu Yang. Major religions suffered a setback during the chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution when clergy and layman alike were persecuted, publicly mocked, jailed and even killed. Today, China's population of religious believers could be three times larger than government estimates, A recent poll out of Shanghai-based East China Normal University, found that 31.4 percent of Chinese aged 16 and above, or about 300 million, were religious.

ITN Source | February 18, 2007

Tags:. .fellow. .sticks. .religious. .decades. .religions