Thousand-year-old temple seeks new media talents

Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang province makes headlines with its job ad posted on social media. [Photo/IC]

In a bid to modernize its image and better interact with its followers, a thousand-year-old temple in East China recently posted an online advertisement to recruit media professionals, male or female, to work in the temple.

Lingyin Temple, located in Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang province, posted the ads on its public account on messaging app Wechat on Feb 12, seeking a web editor and video producer.

The jobs are open to both female and male applicants, and the candidates need not convert to Buddhism, a staffer from the temple told thepaper.cn.

Built in 326 AD during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Lingyin Temple has a history of nearly 1,700 years.

The staffer said "as a thousand-year-old temple, Lingyin Temple has an open mind to new things." Since 2013, the temple started promoting Buddhist doctrines and publishing information about its religious services on its public accounts on social media platforms Wechat and Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter.

It was also revealed that the publicity department of the temple is mainly comprised of laymen rather than monks, and there are a total of more than 100 non-Buddhist staffers in the temple, almost the same amount as Buddhist staff.

The jobs in the temple are not as mysterious as imagined, and they are rather like nine-to-five jobs, with lunch offered to workers, said the staffer.

In 2014, China's kungfu Mecca Shaolin Temple made a splash among the public after publishing a similar job ad for media talent.

In 2015, a temple in South China's Guangdong province also made headlines for posting a job advertisement for media professionals, receiving thousands of applications from all over the world.