Bootleg faith

In this week's Oriental Outlook, Jilin resident Zhang Yunmei writes about an interesting experience buying bootleg books:

During the October 1st holiday, I went to buy some books near the university I had once attended. I found that not only were there many bookstores in the area around the university, but vendors with pushcarts selling pirated editions were all over. The vendors typically pushed three-wheeled carts packed with all kinds of popular books — whatever was selling well at the time, they'd be able to find in their cart.

I was aware that the books they were selling were undoubtedly bootlegs, but since their prices were seductively low, and pirated editions these days come in several classes — a top-level bootleg is little different from an authorized edition — I dove into the crush of people and began picking through the books. Suddenly, among the layers of mass-market books, I saw a superbly-bound copy of the Bible. I thought to myself, so there's even a bootleg of the Bible. Would those people who believe in Jesus look to save money by buying a pirated copy to read every day? So, though I knew the answer, I asked, "Is this Bible a pirated version, too?" "Bootleg editions offend the Lord!" the vendor quickly replied. I never would have thought that even book vendors might have faith.

Er Hei, who noted that street booksellers were trading in bootleg Bibles back in 2005, offers this assessment:

This can only mean one thing: the Bible has started to become like those kung-fu novels, has started to find an enthusiastic audience.