300,000 bowls of congee for free

Volunteers pack Laba congee or eight-treasure porridge at the Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou today. Some 300,000 bowels of congee will be handed out free to pilgrims, orphans and seniors in nursing homes in Hangzhou this Saturday to observe a Buddhist tradition. It is said that a starving Gautama, who later became the Buddha, was saved on the 8th day of the last month in the lunar calendar, by a village woman with a bowl of porridge made with goat milk.