China: In Search of...Something

A growing number of Chinese, unmoored by rapid change, are finding answers in religion
By JASON DEAN AND LORETTA CHAO
April 12, 2008

Beijing -- Anyone in China over the age of, say, 30 has lived through more change than most Westerners can imagine in a lifetime.

In the early 1970s, China was in the grip of the Cultural Revolution, one of the most extreme incarnations of Communism the world has known, a chaotic period when traditional culture and values were all but eradicated. The Maoism that replaced Chinese tradition has since been eviscerated by three decades of economic reforms and opening that began in 1978. Today, it often seems that the pursuit of growth and profit are China's new reigning orthodoxy.

Not surprisingly, many Chinese feel unmoored by these turbulent ideological swings. There is a growing belief, especially among urban residents who have benefited most from economic change, that China's material success has come without any accompanying moral anchor for society. They argue that this dearth of morality in China's materialistic modern society is the cause of many of the country's well-known woes: corruption, environmental abuses, a growing gap between rich and poor, and even China's hyperreliance on cash, which many argue flows from a lack of trust needed to develop a flourishing credit culture. the rest