‘I want US$1.5 million and a girlfriend’: Chinese man travels 2,000km to Big Buddha then uses giant speaker to blast out wishes so deity can hear
- Down on his luck, a Chinese man takes long-distance trip to Big Buddha statue then blasts out his wishes on a giant airpod-shaped speaker
- Increasing numbers of young people in China are turning to temples and religious worship in a bid to escape the everyday pressures of life
A Chinese man has tried to make sure all his wishes come true by travelling 2,000km to the site of a giant Buddha and holding up a big airpod-shaped speaker to blast out his prayers to the statue.
In a video posted by the man, surnamed Zhang, on Douyin on April 25, he can be seen holding up the sizeable speaker beside the ear of the 71-metre-tall Leshan Giant Buddha and cranking up the volume on his phone so that the deity “can hear him better”.
“Do you know, giant Buddha, I’m 27 years old and I don’t have a car, a house or a girlfriend,” Zhang shouted.
He then made his wishes: “Firstly, I want to be rich. I don’t need much. 10 million yuan (US$1.5 million) is enough.
“Most importantly, I want a girlfriend, who is just a little bit pretty, tender and loves me rather than my 10 million!”
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‘I want US$15 million and a girlfriend’: Chinese man blasts out wishes to Big Buddha
Zhang said that following a run of bad luck as a result of “mercury retrograde”, he decided to spend 12 hours during the weekend to travel from China’s eastern Zhejiang province to southwestern Sichuan, to the Big Buddha.
Mercury retrograde is an astrological phenomenon that occurs three to four times a year and is an optical illusion involving the realignment of planet Mercury on which many blame their woes.
Zhang said he bought the speaker on an e-commerce platform because it was “a good match with the Buddha”.
His outrageous prayer style has delighted many online.
“Between relying on others and relying on himself, he chose to rely on the Buddha,” said one observer.
“Bringing an earphone designed for the Buddha - has nei juan finally spread to god worshipping?” another joked, referring to “involution”, a term that describes intense but meaningless competition at work and in school.
“Is it possible that since you placed the earphone to the wrong ear of the Buddha, he didn’t hear your wishes?” a third sharply pointed out.
Worshipping gods and visiting temples has become popular among young people in China as a way of escaping the increasing pressures of life.
The Leshan Giant Buddha, carved out of a cliff between AD713 and AD803 during the Tang dynasty, is the tallest stone Buddha statue in the world.
In 2020, a Chinese media outlet reported that a series of eight Douyin live streams from the Leshan Giant Buddha, hosted by the Chengdu Television Broadcasting Station, were viewed by half a million people, who flooded to the live-streaming page to comment with their wishes.
