The Worship of Mammon: China's national religion

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A roof is all [Yezong Zumu] needs until dawn, when she sets off again, chanting scriptures, fingering her prayer beads and slowly trekking around the sacred mountain, Xiannairi.

For almost all of her 67 years, it has been thus for this Buddhist - living close to nature, close to the spiritual and precariously close to starvation. It is not unusual in this southern corner of Sichuan province, where - such is the sense of the mystic, the beautiful landscape and the remoteness of the location - local people believe that they live in a real-life Shangri-la despite enduring the most wretched poverty.

But in recent years one of the fastest changes in world history has caught up with this remote place. First came the new road, then cars, electricity, TV and tourists. Now Yezong tells me - the only foreigner she has ever met - her family has an income. It has transformed her values. On this annual pilgrimage, she will pray for a good harvest, her family's health and peace. But asked for her greatest source of happiness, she says: 'Making money. If you have money you can do anything.'

...A glimpse of Shangri-la's future can be seen five hours' drive to the south-west in the mega-resort of Lijiang. A decade ago this tranquil community of bubbling streams, cobbled alleys and wooden homes was little known. Today it is a playground. Buses and planes arrive daily, disgorging their human contents into a fast-expanding city of hotels, bars and trinket stalls. At night the bubbling brooks are drowned out by raucous singing contests. There are few complaints, though...

Tourists are arriving in increasing numbers [to Yading - a Tibetan village in Sichuan province too remote to appear in most guidebooks]. Hotels and guides are cashing in. Women are arriving from faraway villages to work as waitresses and prostitutes. The provincial government talks of building a cable car up to one of the sacred sites. 'Our biggest source of happiness is the increase in tourists. Although their rubbish hurts the environment, they bring money,' says A Wangsiliang, fungus collector, Buddhist and secretary of the local Communist party. 'Our main worry is that the authorities will seize our land to build hotels, just as they did in the other Shangri-la.'..

Nobody would claim that China is a spiritual paradise, but attitudes are changing. Even in the Tibetan areas of Yunnan and Sichuan, where Buddhism is tightly controlled, the monks say more monasteries are opening and more people visiting as worshippers or tourists.

Marxist ideology has been undermined by the gulf between rich and poor, and the victory of competition over co-operation. It is evident in the crowds of beggars at the station the next day. Wang Chunlan, 80, left her Anhui home two years ago when her family were unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Sleeping rough in the city, she says, is an improvement. 'In the past I had no income. I could only eat what we grew. But now every day I can get a few yuan. Today I was very lucky. A woman gave me 3 yuan (20 pence).' Prostitution, drug abuse, counterfeiting and organised crime are on the rise. Last year the government reported a record 87,000 public order disturbances. In appeals to the nation's morality, the government has begun mixing its communist rhetoric with Confucianism - evident in President Hu Jintao's oft-repeated aspiration to create a 'harmonious society'. On the train every carriage has a poster promoting the 'Eight Virtues and Eight Shames' - ideals advocated by the President in a speech this year. The conservative value system, which includes the dictum 'respect order, do not embrace chaos', owes more to old imperial hierarchies than the revolutionary ideals of the republic's founders...

Of the 28 people I interview on the journey, [only one saw a decline in income]. For two, it remained the same. The rest cited substantial increases. More than 20 said they were twice as well off as in 2001. Even given the growth of the economy over that time, this was impressive - particularly because we were passing through some of the poorest provinces. For this the government must be credited. Rather than rely only on the trickle-down effect, it has diverted £114bn to deprived inland regions under the 'Go West' policy.

Most surprisingly, the majority of people I met said their living environments had improved. Despite numerous warnings of river pollution, smog, desertification and acid rain, most people believed their drinking water was cleaner, air quality better and the forest cover thicker than five years ago.

Were the reports wrong? Were people being duped by propaganda? Or were perceived improvements of the environment, like religious freedom, simply relative to the dire standards of the past? Driving through the grim terrain of northern Shaanxi province and Inner Mongolia, it was hard to imagine how much worse it could have been. Once past the loess hills (and thousands more cave dwellings), we hit Yulin, where part of the Great Wall has been knocked down and replaced by a row of shops and apartment buildings. Soon after, we hit a sandstorm, then hundreds of miles of desert and scrubland, punctuated by cement factories, gravel pits, power plants and the occasional coal dump.

It is hard to imagine anything less like Shangri-la than this blasted landscape. When the dust storms blow in - eight so far this year - few venture outside without face masks or scarves to cover their mouths and eyes. The deserts are creeping closer to the cities because of the climate and more than two decades of rushed development, over-exploitation of water resources and deforestation.

Yet local people insist life is getting better. Incomes are rising...

In terms of raising living standards, China has come much further, much faster than many outsiders think; people are becoming aware of the need for a more sustainable model of development; and there is a hunger for something beyond the material. A brave minority are even willing to speak out about politics.

There was no utopia, no great drive for a religious or political ideal. Today the closest thing to a national religion is the worship of money, the only unifying belief a conviction 'life is getting better'. But there was a huge energy, immense optimism and an encouraging open-mindedness. Nobody expected paradise - communist or religious - any time soon, just an improvement in their daily lives and hopes for a China with 'more green and more blue'.

Although they're not the only ones: see Ambrose Bierce's definition of mammon:

The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.