Donations at China's temples go mostly to developers
Staff Reporter
2015-01-06
A woman holds up incense sticks to while other worshipers turn a prayer wheel at Guzhe Temple, Beijing, Oct. 24. (File Photo/CNS)
The money stuffed in donation boxes in China's Buddhist and Daoist temples is in most cases not going to temple administrators but to the management agencies of the space surrounding religious venues, reports the Chinese-language Beijing News.
The thousand-year-old Guzhe Temple in Beijing is an A4-level national tourist site managed by a private tourist development firm, in addition to the monks that live in and run the temple itself. The astonishingly numerous — more than 70 — donation boxes place around the temple are distinguished into two types. The ones inscribed with Chinese words meaning "planting seeds in the field of happiness," which account for 30% of the total boxes, belong to the monks and are used for religious purposes, while the rest, labeled merely "donation box," belong to the recreational site operator.
In other words, there is a greater chance that the money from worshipers or visitors to end up funding some real estate or tourist site developer, especially given that most of the commercial boxes are placed in more conspicuous spots like next to the information booth and souvenir stores.
It has been an open secret in China that tourist developers use temples of historic interest to collect funds, according to the report. The developer of the Guzhe Temple, for example, listed in one of their operation analysis reports in 2010 that it needed a total of 118.5 million yuan (US$19 million) to upgrade tourist facilities around the temple. Most of the funds would come from a private backer, while nearly 40 million yuan (US$6 million) was listed as being "sought elsewhere."
A temple staff member said that the money would most definitely be collected from the donation boxes.
A spokesperson for the Buddhist Association of China in Beijing said it is hard to monitor the donation boxes as they are easily accessible, and even if the association sends representatives to remove them, they are replaced the next day, said the spokesperson.
Under Chinese law, non-religious groups are not allowed to organize religious events on undesignated "non-religious sites" and are banned from receiving donations in the name of religion.
The venerable Ming Xian, head of the Beihai Buddhist Hall in Qinghai and deputy director of the Buddhist Culture Center at the Chinese Culture Promotion Society, told reporters that tourist developers and management agencies of ancient temples have no right to place donation boxes in temples because they are non-religious organizations. Mixing their own donation boxes with temple donation boxes should be considered fraud, the monk said.
An employee from Beijing's Bureau of Religion said tourist sites that encompass historic temples and use them as key attractions are entitled to commercial acts such as running a souvenir store. However, they are not allowed to set up donation boxes.
