荒诞者共和

Ekklesia
May 11, 2005

China's fast-growing churches are facing the task of making the Gospel authentic to a culture that has historically seen it as 'foreign', a world gathering of church and mission leaders heard yesterday.

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Between secularist ideology and desecularizing reality: the birth and growth of religious research in Communist China
By Fenggang Yang
Sociology of Religion
Summer, 2004

Merely three decades ago, China appeared to be the most secularized country in the world. Not a single temple or church was open for public religious service, and people appeared to wholeheartedly believe in atheism, as reported by this American observer. At the turn of the twenty-first century, however, China may have become one of the most religious countries in the world. All kinds of religions, old or new, conventional or eccentric, are thriving. American and other Western media often feed images and stories of spectacular revivals of various religions and reckless crackdowns of religious organizations by the Communist government. The growth of various religions and the government's religious policies are important research topics both for understanding China and for theoretical development in the social scientific study of religion, which have received limited but some scholarly attention (e.g., Hunter and Chan 1993; Madsen 1998; Overmyer 2003; Kindopp and Hamrin 2004).

However, between the atheist ideology and repressive religious policy of the government on the one hand and the desecularizing reality of thriving religions on the other hand, religious research in China has emerged as the third entity playing complicated but increasingly important roles in China's religious scene. This paper focuses on the changing scholarship of religious research. (1) What are the roles of religious research in China under the rule of the Communist Party? Is the scholarship merely part of the atheist propaganda and for the purpose of controlling religion? Or is it serving the interest of religions? What are the predominant theories, perspectives, or approaches in religious research? How are these changing and why?

I will show that during the last two decades of the twentieth century, the birth and growth of religious research in China have been dramatic. In a sense it parallels the paradigm shift in the sociology of religion in the United States (Warner 1993), in which the new paradigm offers a more objective, scientific, and consequently more balanced approach to religion than the old paradigm that favors secularization as the destiny (Stark and Finke 2000). Religious research in China remains limited and restricted in many ways. However, the scholarship has shifted away from ideological atheism--a radical form of secularization "theories"--to a more scientific, objective approach that affirms both the positive and negative functions of religion. This intellectual history has three distinct periods: the domination of atheisms from 1949 to 1979, the birth of religious research in the 1980s, and the flourishing of the scholarship in the 1990s. Religious research in Communist China was established for the purpose of atheist propaganda and religious control, but it grew into an independent academic discipline that has become more responsive to the desecularizing reality.

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By Jason Lee Steorts
National Review
Jan 31, 2005

(Mr. Steorts is a freelance writer.)

BEIJING I meet Qiu Yue and her friend Yang Jie at an average-looking restaurant. Qiu has chosen the place precisely because it is unremarkable. Our meeting must have a low profile: Qiu and Yang's safety would be jeopardized if the authorities knew they were having lunch with a Western journalist. In fact, Qiu fears that her security has already been compromised. She suspects that her phone has been tapped, and knows that her e-mails, like those of everyone else in China, are screened by software that searches for terms deemed politically sensitive. We have therefore taken precautions: Our phone conversations have been short and vague, and in our e-mails we have made a habit of writing "C" instead Christian, "B" instead of Bible. Probably we have avoided detection. But one cannot be sure.

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By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
October 1, 2006

[Maureen Fan is based in Beijing for The Washington Post. Fan began her reporting career with the South Morning China Post in Hong Kong. She has reported for the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, the New York Daily News and the San Jose Mercury News. In the New York bureau of the Mercury News, Fan reported on business, technology and breaking news, including the Sept. 11 attacks. She also covered the war in Iraq for Knight Ridder Newspapers. Fan joined The Washington Post's metro staff in 2004. Read more of her articles on China here. Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report]

WENZHOU, China -- A new breed of churches in this region of China has demonstrated a boldness and independence unmatched elsewhere in the country, despite strict government guidelines for places of worship.

Here in Wenzhou and the surrounding province of Zhejiang, just south of Shanghai, a growing number of congregations that began life as house churches -- unauthorized place of worship set up in private, often dilapidated homes -- have recently registered with the government, while continuing to spurn the rules of the official Protestant church in China. Like so many institutions in China, these churches now hover in a sort of legal netherworld.

The official church, known as the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, was founded in the 1950s to free religious Chinese from foreign funds and influence. Its name is derived from the principles of self-governance, self-support and self-propagation of the Gospel.

The fact that many Christians in this region have turned away from the official church's beliefs, analysts say, is a result of history and prosperity.

"Wenzhou's Christians have a lot of social connections, a lot of friends, they're very capable," said Chen Cun-fu, director of the Institute of Christianity and Cross-Cultural Studies at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. "They're smart, they know how to do things. They're young, they have money, they have their own cars and cellphones."

Meanwhile, a growing number of college students, lawyers, businessmen and preachers educated abroad are also joining illegal house churches.

According to the rules of China's official church, midweek services are forbidden, as is proselytizing outside of church. But the rules are often bent, depending on the relationship between local officials and church leaders, and some independent-minded churches refuse to attend official meetings or pay official fees.

The well-worn Bailouxia church, tucked away down a small lane in this prosperous city, began as an illegal house church. But the church registered with the local religious authorities, and now displays a cross outside the building.

On a recent day, four elderly parishioners stretched out in varnished wooden pews, napping under ceiling fans. In a back row, a toddler fussed as a woman plucked the eyebrows of another worshiper using a thread.

"God's temple is desolate," sang a preacher at an electric keyboard, leading about 60 people in a hymn. "Where is the watchman? The wall is collapsed and everybody is only taking care of themselves."

Clash Over a Building

Nothing illustrated the boldness of Zhejiang's Christians more clearly than the hasty building of an illegal house church this summer in a suburb of Hangzhou, the provincial capital. When local officials demolished the church, a massive riot ensued, with 3,000 protesters facing off against thousands of uniformed riot police, security guards and plainclothes police.

It was the most dramatic example in a series of arrests, raids and demolitions of churches considered illegal by the authorities. Some observers said the riot was only the latest chapter in a long-running battle between authorities and the more outspoken of China's growing population of 45 million to 65 million Christians. Other activists said it represented a stepped-up persecution of unregistered congregations.

The 85-year-old church, in the suburban district of Xiaoshan, had its own building before government officials turned it into a hospital many years ago. Since then, members had haggled with officials for compensation and a new location, most recently rejecting a government-approved spot beside a noisy highway.

"Xiaoshan people have the tradition of family or house gatherings and they're rich, so they want more freedom," said Chen. "It's hard for the government to regulate them and tell them where to build their church."

Tired of delays, church members decided in July they couldn't wait any longer. Hundreds gathered in Xiaoshan's Cheluwan village to build the church by hand. They began on a Monday, one group encircling the site to serve as protection with a second group working in rotation through the night. Some volunteers cooked while others stood above one another on metal scaffolding, handing up bricks, sand, cement, shovels and rope.

By Saturday morning they needed only to lay the roof. But on the afternoon of July 29, authorities sent several hundred trucks, four bulldozers, and thousands of riot police, security officers and non-uniformed guards to the scene. Police used bullhorns to order everyone to disperse.

"Stop all illegal activity," the police demanded, as bystanders used their cellphones to photograph their arrival. "Nobody should obstruct state officials who are executing their public function. Nobody should make up facts, spread rumors or disturb social order."

A riot broke out as church members tried to stop the demolition. More than 50 people were detained and many were beaten, said an attorney for the detained, who interviewed and photographed the injured. Six church leaders remain under arrest for instigating violence and interfering with the law. Prosecutors will soon decide whether to formally charge them.

The head of the village, who said his surname was Wang, insisted there had been no injuries and complained that the church was unregistered and illegal.

"They're absolutely lawless. They consider God to be the most powerful authority and ignore the law," Wang said in a telephone interview.

Official state media reported only that an illegal building had been dismantled, but news of the riot, arrests and beatings spread quickly among Christians.

"This would only happen in Zhejiang. In other provinces, Christians wouldn't dare to build a church this way," said a preacher in a registered Three-Self church in Hangzhou that has several thousand worshipers. He asked not to be named because religion is such a sensitive topic.

"The authorities pay no attention to what you preach, so long as you don't talk about political issues," the preacher said. "The law in China is very fluid. They can regulate but people sometimes do what they want."

In Xiaoshan, however, residents now live in fear. There is an ongoing investigation into who leaked news of the riot to foreign media. One villager said police have been waiting outside the homes of active Christians and posing as journalists.

"You can't speak loudly or talk to outsiders or strangers. There are plainclothes police paying close attention to the houses where Christians live," he said. "They stop people on the street, and in the middle of the night. They ask where the leaders have gone."

'It's Just a Name'

Hu Qianjie, the 32-year-old owner of a Wenzhou welding factory, is one of the growing number of independent-minded preachers at registered churches in China. The son of peddlers, he grew up in poverty and remembers Christians coming to help pray for a sick younger brother.

"I was so confused about what I was taught in school -- that socialism was good, everybody was equal, no job was better than another," he said of the search that led him to convert to Christianity when he was 17. Today, despite the fact that he leads a congregation affiliated with the official church, he makes his own views known.

"We look like we might be under the umbrella of the Three-Self church but actually it's just a name, like a sign hanging in front of your house," he said. "I don't just explain the Bible to my followers, I link it to the current situation of society."

Hu rejects the formulaic nature of official Three-Self sermons that stick strictly to the Gospel. And he is critical of early Communist Party attacks on any Western ideology, arguing that Christian cultures are better at absorbing useful lessons from other societies. "Chinese culture just expels everything that doesn't fit with its own culture," he said.

By making the church relevant to the lives of young Christians, Hu also hopes it will fill a void because the government is unable to provide moral leadership.

"We don't talk publicly about sensitive, political issues," he said. "We focus more on abortion, divorce, extramarital affairs. The Communist Party has no more standard for that, no more restrictions on that."

Zheng Datong, a Wenzhou preacher who gives sermons in both registered and unregistered churches, said churches in China are an important outlet for the middle class in Zhejiang province.

"I have many friends who are middle class and who own their own businesses," he said. "I can tell there is a need for them to do some soul-searching. People have everything now -- they have cars, they have houses -- but no peace."

By Jonathan Watts
August 27, 2006
The Observer

[Observer correspondent Jonathan Watts travelled more than 3,000 miles across the world's fastest changing country asking people how their lives have been affected. On this remarkable journey across China, he finds that, after years of deprivation, even the poorest provinces are sharing in a new-found prosperity. View Jonathan Watts' journey in pictures]

Just before nightfall, Yezong Zumu seeks the charity of the caterpillar fungus diggers, whose mountain shacks offer respite from the bitter winds that slice across the stony Himalayan plain, 4,000 metres above sea level. A roof is all she 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.'

In terms of UK history, Yezong has travelled from the medieval period to the 20th century in a decade, pulled aboard China's economic express which is powering through to the most isolated places on Earth. Interest in China's surging economy has largely focused on the new rich in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, but a bigger impact is on the old poor in provinces such as Yunnan, Sichuan and Shaanxi. This is the real achievement of a near 10 per cent annual growth. Never mind that a few million on the eastern seaboard can now afford Louis Vuitton bags and BMWs, what is incredible is that hundreds of millions of farmers no longer have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. Material success has cost dear, however, in terms of pollution, inequality and civil rights. Never mind, the communist government has always argued, our priority is food, shelter and clothing for 1.3 billion people. But now this task is nearing completion, what comes next?

The search for utopia starts in the foothills of the Himalayas in Yunnan, where virgin forest blankets what - until recently - was one of the planet's most pristine environments. Home to three of Asia's mightiest rivers, its greatest mountains and an astonishingly diverse mix of flora, fauna and ethnic minorities, this province has always been an ideal spot for those who like to look backwards and upwards for their earthly paradise. In Britain the most famous of them is James Hilton, who set his utopian Thirties novel Lost Horizon in the fictional land of Shangri-la. Although the author never came to China, he considered this region to be the antithesis of the grim industrialisation of the era. Now millions of wealthy Chinese - mostly from polluted cities - are flocking to Yunnan seeking a lost purity.

But these journeys create problems. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Shangri-la - formerly known by the less romantic name of Zhongdian - which has seen a rise in tourist numbers from 15,000 to 2.6 million in 10 years.

For anyone expecting tranquillity, the crowds and traffic in the town are as much of a shock as the signs for the Shangri-la branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Shangri-la Communist party headquarters or the 'old town' currently being built from scratch. But few seem to mind. Local people we speak to say they are pleased with the changes, which have raised incomes in one of China's poorest areas. 'There is damage from tourism, but it is better than in the past, when we relied on logging and mining,' says Zeren Pingcuo, a landscape photographer. 'The wonderful thing is man can do all this destruction and yet nature still shows its beauty.'

But the crush of humanity is taking an increasing toll. 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. Progress has brought money and personal - if not political - freedom. Xuan Ke, pre-eminent musician and raconteur in Lijiang, was jailed for 21 years because of his family's association with foreign missionaries. Now 77, he regales tourists with a witty critique of a development model that is destroying local traditions.

'In China now there are no beliefs. People's lives are empty. They need a dream. The economic situation is getting better and better, but in politics there has been no movement,' he tells me. Nonetheless, he is optimistic. 'I believe we will see progress in the next five to 10 years.'

It is a confidence I find almost everywhere on the journey: from a Tibetan pig farmer, a Mongolian mausoleum guard, a Naxi housewife, a trekking guide, a wind-engineer, a beggar, a train guard, several monks, two army veterans, a policeman, a masseur and even a few environmental activists.

Our next destination is Yading - a Tibetan village in Sichuan province too remote to appear in most guidebooks, though locals claim this is the real Shangri-la. To get there our car traverses steep, slippery roads past several buses and trucks stuck in mud. The muzzy feeling in my temple is the altitude: more than 4,000m above sea level. Difficult to reach and largely unspoiled, Yading is close to Hilton's ideal. On the road we meet Yezong Zumu and countless caterpillar fungus collectors, who scour the slopes from dawn till dusk in search of the tiny stems. The fungus is used for Tibetan medicine, which, like everything else, is now a booming industry in China. They may find five in a day, each worth 15 yuan (£1), but this is good money.

Tourists are arriving in increasing numbers. 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.'

A modern Chinese dream is being fashioned from concrete: more dams, hotels and roads. At Kangding, signs announce the construction of a new airport in the clouds. Sited well above 4,000m, planes will be half the way into the sky on the runway.

But is there anything more to China's development than money? Next stop is Xian, the capital in the heyday of the Tang dynasty (AD618 to 907), when China was the world's most advanced civilisation. The city's political power has long since faded but it is important for Christians and Muslims. At St Francis cathedral the congregation for Sunday evening Mass is so large many must stand. Priests say contributions from local and overseas donors have doubled in five years, which has funded new schools, clinics and other social projects, including water treatment facilities. Father Stephen Chen tells me more people, particularly the young, are coming to church. He is optimistic Beijing will soon establish relations with the Vatican, and compared with the past Christians have more freedom to worship. 'Things are moving in the right direction,' he says. 'If people live according to a moral code or the teachings of one of the great religions - Christian, Buddhist or Daoist - we will improve society.'

There is a similarly upbeat message at the Xian Great Mosque - a series of ancient wooden courtyards which the guidebook says is the most famous Islamic centre in China. A mullah says worshippers have increased by 30 per cent in the past five years. At Friday prayers, the 2,000 places are filled. 'It is getting easier to worship,' says Ma Xinxian, a Muslim shopkeeper. 'Business is also improving. Life is getting better.'

In the evening I meet a priest from one of the underground churches which refuse to accept political control of appointments and procedures. There are occasional crackdowns but even this priest agrees the climate has improved. In Shaanxi province the rift between the underground and official branches of the church - each of which has about 100,000 worshippers - has closed.

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.

Old values are still evident in Yanan, probably the closest China ever came to a socialist utopia. After the trials of the Long March in the Thirties, this city in Shaanxi province was Mao Zedong's base for 13 years before he took power. Children are taught this was a time of great hope, selfless community work, courage in the war against Japan, and the spread of free schooling and healthcare.

Today rising medical and education fees are the biggest worry for China's 800 million peasants. Overseas academics have revealed the bloody purges during that supposed golden age, but none are mentioned at the Yanan Revolutionary Commemoration Museum, a political shrine where visitors on the 'Red Tourist Trail' can see Mao's pistol and clothes, life-sized models of senior communists, and giant pictures of the 'Great Helmsman'. 'When I come here, I feel very proud to be a communist,' says Li Jun, a party secretary of a work brigade in Anhui. 'Although there have been big improvements in our lives, we must learn from the Yanan spirit to overcome adversity. The road is long, but I believe we can still achieve a communist utopia.' The communist party is growing - from 64 million to 70 million since 2001 - but the motivation for joining is now as likely to be a desire to enter the ruling class as social idealism.

We make an unannounced visit to China's only retirement home for non-commissioned veterans of the Red Army. It is Potemkin old people's home. From an army of millions, fewer than 30 enjoy the comforts of this quiet residence, which include a pension of 970 yuan (£72) per month, in addition to free accommodation and food. A nurse introduces us to Liu Tianyou, a 90-year old veteran selected to talk to President Hu when he visited earlier this year. Liu started her propaganda career in the 4th Army in 1933 and is still committed: 'The whole purpose of our revolution was to achieve communism. That is what we fought for. In a communist state you can have anything you want and everyone is the same. We are not there yet.'

Five minutes' walk away, we see just how far China is from that paradise. Wang Xiuling lives in a cave with her four children. It took them 12 days to dig their home, one of thousands that pock the hillsides around the city. It is dimly lit and decorated by a few posters and half a dozen basic items of furniture. 'This new home is for my children. I was brought up in a cave and to me it feels more comfy, but I don't want my children to end up living in one.' She is saving all she can to give her son a good education. There is not enough to do the same for her three girls, particularly now that her income - as a butcher - has halved in five years to just 1,000 yuan (£70) per month. 'Too many people are moving in to the city from the countryside. The competition is much tougher than in the past.'

Of the 28 people I interview on the journey, Mrs Wang is the only one whose income declined. 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 and a huge campaign to fight the desert by planting 12 billion trees has made the sands greener. Coal still rules but we visit China's biggest wind farm in Huiteng Xile, where - on a gusty day - the 94 turbines can send 68,000kw of electricity per hour to Beijing.

It is almost dark by the time we reach Shangdu, a town better known as Xanadu. Far from the 'stately pleasure dome' envisaged by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Kubla Khan, the dishevelled town is an outpost in oblivion. We visit the ruins of Kubla Khan's summer palace. In the 13th century, this was the heart of one of the greatest land empires in history. Poets from the Yuan dynasty - founded by Kubla Khan, grandson of Ghengis - have described the excesses of the court, which hosted three-day feasts, with scholars and travellers from around the world. All that is left of that paradise is a square mile of grassy banks and stones on a windswept plain. There is no treasure, only the meagre takings of the ticket booth, in which the attendant is sleeping when we arrive. The only sign of life is some empty beer bottles and a snake asleep among the rubble. There can be few more forlorn examples of how empires can fall as well as rise.

China is in too much of a hurry to bother with ruins. We meet only two other visitors. One of them, Lu Zhiqing, an artist, is here in search of inspiration for a statue he has been commissioned to sculpt in Xanadu. Asked how China could avoid the pitfalls of the past, the 50-year-old talks about the environment. 'I am an artist, so I see things in terms of colours. When I was a child, the sky was so polluted that it was often yellow, red or black. It is better now, but we must do more. What we need in China is more green and more blue.'

Heading back to Beijing in another grit storm, the artist's colour code strikes me as a good a way of understanding China. Development has taken the country from the green of Shangri-la's primordial forests, through the communist red of Yanan to the industrial black lands of Inner Mongolia. The big question is whether it will end in the yellow sands that whip across the ruins of Xanadu and threaten cities as far away as Beijing.

It had been almost two weeks and 5,000km since I set out. We had followed part of the trail of the Long March and the Silk Road, crossed the torrents of the Yangtze and the almost dry Yellow river, passed through a gaping hole in the Great Wall, and been hit by altitude sickness and desert storms. I ended the journey with more hope than I started. 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'.