With employment difficult to secure Chinese graduates are stalking the corridors of holy temples.

 

Famen Temple, one of the four most famous Buddhist temples in ancient China, employed four graduate students and five with bachelor's degrees at a job market at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University on Sunday in Xi'an, capital of the northwestern province of Shaanxi. It also hired 18 graduates from two other universities.

 

 

Famen Temple

 

It's the first time the temple has been to a job market to employ university graduates, said Xiankong, an eminent monk from the temple. "Our exchanges with the outside world are increasing each year so we need professional talents in fields such as publicity, reception and management," he said.

 

The temple planned to employ two PhD students, three Master students, 14 bachelor students and two technical school graduates who've majored in foreign languages, art, economic management, gardening, information management and Chinese literature. Nearly 60 students applied for the positions. The recruitment was a success even if no PhD students were hired, said Xiankong.

 

The employees need to sign a one-year contract and live in the temple. Unlike the resident Buddhist monks their time is free in the evenings.

 

The salary for a graduate with a bachelor's degree is 700 to 1200 yuan (US$89.7 to 153.7) per month. This is the going rate in the province. But salaries for students with higher degrees were negotiable, said Xiankong.

 

Archeologists found human remains and 2,000 relics in a 1,000-year-old underground vault in the temple in 1987. The remains are said to be the finger bones of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism. Since then Famen Temple, 118 kilometers from Xi'an, has become a holy place for Buddhists from all round the world.

 

And Shaolin Temple, another holy temple synonymous with Chinese kungfu, is being publicly questioned and criticized by many for extracting worldly profits from something sacred.

 

The temple in central China's Henan Province, which is run by MBA graduate abbot Shi Yongxin, has its own welfare foundation, magazine, movie and TV company and martial arts promotion agency. It held an international kungfu TV competition in 2006.

 

 

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2007)