Religion in China (Buddhism in China)

China is a country with a great diversity of religious beliefs. The main religions are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. Accoring to incomplete statistics, there are over 100 million followers of varios religious faiths, more than 85,000 sites for religious activities, some 300,000 clergy and over 3,000 religious organizations throughout China. In addition, there are 74 religious schools an colleges run by religious organizations for training clericel personal. In their different ways most Chinese have shown themselves to be concerned primarily with the human person and society. In a predominantly rural country, this has manifested itself in a concern for the land and its prosperity. Thus religious practice has been closely linked with the question of the ownership of the land.                                                                                               Buddhism is the only foreign religion that has been widely accepted in China. It has a story of 2,000 years in China. It first entered China in the second century AD and by the Tang dynasty was the most dynamic and influential of all religions. China has 13,000-some Buddhist temples and about  200,000 Buddhist monks and nuns. Among them are 120,000 lamas and nuns, more than 1,700 Living Buddhas, and  3,000-some temples of Tibetan Buddhism and nearly 10,000 Bhisku and senior monks and more than 1,600 temples of Pali Buddhism. Buddha in East Asia is almost always shown smiling or laughing, hence his nickname in Chinese, the Laughing Buddha. And also he is shown as fat Buddha.