Chinese folk religion has not simply declined under modernization; it has moved through cycles of suppression, revival, and reinterpretation. Political campaigns once condemned many practices as “superstition,” leading to the destruction or repurposing of temples and the banning of rituals. With later economic reforms, however, there has been a widespread rebuilding of temples, renewed public festivals, and a cautious re-emergence of ancestral rites, all under continuing state oversight. In this new environment, many practices are reframed as “folk customs,” “intangible cultural heritage,” or expressions of patriotism and moral education, allowing them to survive in a more culturally acceptable guise. This reframing often shifts emphasis from direct negotiation with spirits to themes such as social harmony, filial piety, and shared identity.

Modernization has also reshaped the social spaces in which these traditions live. Urbanization and the weakening of village-based communities have reduced the prominence of local cults tied to specific lineages, fields, and village deities. In cities, practice often migrates to home altars, large public temples, or small neighborhood shrines, and ritual specialists may be replaced by more formal clergy or commercially oriented masters. Education and scientific worldviews encourage some to interpret deities and rituals less as literal supernatural dealings and more as cultural inheritance or psychological and ethical support. Among younger generations, participation may decline, yet certain rites endure as markers of respect for ancestors and continuity with the past.

Globalization has opened new pathways for both diffusion and transformation. Chinese communities abroad maintain and adapt folk religious practices, building temples, venerating familiar deities, and conducting ancestral rites in new cultural and legal settings. In these diaspora contexts, traditions often blend with local religious forms, and Chinese gods may be honored alongside other figures or reinterpreted as symbols of ethnic heritage rather than formal religion. Transnational temple networks, pilgrimages, and donations create a shared field of devotion that links different regions and reinforces a sense of common cultural belonging. Through such movements, local cults can become emblems of broader regional or national identity.

At the same time, market forces have turned many sacred sites and rituals into economic resources. Popular temples attract pilgrims and tourists, generating income through donations, festival activities, and the sale of ritual services. Festivals and traditional crafts are increasingly drawn into commercial circuits, sometimes enriching communities but also provoking concerns about “commercialized superstition” and the dilution of spiritual intent. Yet even in this commodified landscape, the underlying concerns that once animated folk religion—health, protection, prosperity, and guidance in uncertain times—continue to find expression. The tradition thus persists not as a static relic, but as a flexible tapestry, continually rewoven to address new social realities while carrying forward older patterns of reverence and relationship.