The unity of body and mind: the integration of leisure and religious practices by rural older women in the Chaoshan area of China

Leisure activities are of great significance to the active aging processes of rural older individuals. This paper focuses on the leisure activities of rural older women in China. Interviews and observations were used to collect the experiences of older women who participated in the Nembutsu hand-clapping exercise (NHCE), a leisure activity with a religious component. We reached the following conclusions. The older individuals experienced three stages of the integration of leisure and religion, i.e., "religion as an additional function," "religion embedded in leisure," and "interdependence between religion and leisure." The NHCE is suitable for older women and provides them with benefits such as gender empowerment, social capital, and identity. This paper expands the body of research on the relationship between religion and leisure and provides a study based on the Chinese context for the construction of leisure theory for rural older women.