With a beaming smile, a shaved head and a clumsy walk, Chen Zhaoyu from Wenling city in east China's Zhejiang province has been gaining fans by the hundreds on social media.

While he is still an amateur at best, the child's mother is planning to send him to a Buddhist monastery to become a disciple.  

Dubbed the 'cutest monk' by his fans, Chen currently has more than 320,000 followers on popular short video site Kuaishou, where his videos are being viewed by the thousands.

'I never expected my son to be famous. I just thought it would be fun to dress him as a monk, take videos for him and share it with my friends,' Yan said, who also has an eight-year-old son.  

Yan said she has been shaving her son's hair every month over the past year to maintain the image of her little star.

'He's quite popular among the abbots and other disciples in our local temples now,' she said. 'Every time we visit the temples a lot of people would come and take pictures with him.'

'We hope that one of the abbots at the Tianhuang Temple will accept my son as a disciple. If so, I think he would be the youngest disciple at the monastery!' she added.