Online Praying

Who is this ? A Buddha's in student's robe ?

No, it's the latest god to appear in China. Over there they call 'him' the 'God Of Test'. Students, mostly taking the extremely competitive entrance examinations log in to a website featuring this 'God of Test' to pray for good results in their examinations.

This 'God of Test' was first highlighted in June this year during the examination season in China and at that time, the website alraady had 40 million members who would log in, write down their prayers, praying to get the blessings from the 'God Of Test'.

A survey carried out discovered that though most of those who prayed to this 'God of Test' were high school students taking college entrance examinations, students taking various examinations or test like civil examinations, auditions, sports selection, driving test and even job interviews also logged in to pray to this internet god. A number of parents also did the same to pray for their children.

Students interviewed said that it's a trend now to pray online, no longer need to burn insense in temples. However many said that they prayed to this god to release their intense pressure during the examination time. ( College or university entrance examination is extremely competitive in China. During the examination season, not only the students but their parents are under extreme pressure to do well in the exams)

What's interesting about this 'God of Test' is that sometimes 'he' would revert an encouragement message to the students like ' study hard, then you do not need to pray to me '.

This new trend of praying has drawn the attention from the experts who said that there are pros and cons to this online praying. It would be fine if students log in to pray just to ease their pressure but it would have detrimental effects on students who believe and rely solely on this 'God of Test' to do well.