I recently had dinner with a primary school friend I had not seen for almost a decade, and was surprised to learn that she had become a practicing Buddhist. As a mother of a seven-year-old, I was even more surprised to hear that she spends her Saturdays with a group of Buddhist friends, studying and talking about philosophy.
What made her interested in Buddhism? I asked.
“I needed meaning in my life,” she said, “I felt like the walking dead before that—I would go to work each day and then go home. I questioned what my purpose was in life. Was it to eat and sleep each day?”
We’d grown up in the same Beijing neighbourhood—she was merely a few years older than me. Yet she was not the first of my childhood friends who had lost direction in their twenties.
Driven on by parents and the force of the Chinese education system, childhood can seem like constant preparation for the next exam. Later comes marriage and children, which is a goal for many of my friends now—yet more than a few of them feel stuck in unchallenging middle-rung jobs that offer a stable wage, but little else.
Many young Chinese are looking for a respite from the banality of such a life. For most, escape lies in social media and television. But a small number of others are turning to religion.
Growing up in China during the 1990s, Communist ideas were dominant in my schooling and atheism was the default. Even so, Christianity started to find a following among people of my mother’s generation. I remember hearing about the aunties who had converted to “Jesus” after retirement. No one took them very seriously: it was what certain middle-aged women did when they had a lot of spare time and little to do.
Today, it’s not only the older generation that has time for religion. While the majority of mainland Chinese remain atheist, research shows that 5 per cent of China’s population identify themselves as Christian. Young Christian “converts” of my generation are particularly active: undergraduate friends tell me that they are often approached by religious students on campus, albeit in a hush-hush manner since open evangelism is not permitted. But there is clearly a thriving religious community. Even while I have been sitting here writing this piece in a university café, a 25-year-old Chinese student has been having a Bible studies lesson on the next table with an American.
China’s own “homegrown” beliefs: Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism, are also gaining adherents among young people. Buddhism is the most practiced of the three, but its following is mainly from older age groups. One PhD student who studied in Taiwan says that Buddhism classes were widely offered by temples, and the sense of community was strong.
The same is missing here in Beijing, but exists within Christian communities. For a generation of only children, this camaraderie can act as a strong draw, particularly when students are thrust into a new city with little family support. This was the case for Zhang, who joined a Christian congregation as an undergraduate. She was so overwhelmed by the “immense kindness” of fellow believers, that it made her feel like she had a new family.
Admiration and fascination for European and American culture remain widespread in China: in recent years, young people have started to celebrate Halloween, Christmas and even Thanksgiving with eagerness. Religion may also hold the same appeal.
“But those who really believe and understand their faith are still a very tiny minority,” says my childhood Buddhist friend. It’s difficult to know whether a turn towards religion is a true cry for spiritual guidance, or merely a trend. For me at least, it is a struggle to comprehend that the atheism we all grew up with—where the very idea of God was ludicrous—can be so easily wiped away.
