"This excellent study, among its other virtues, makes one outstanding contribution to religious studies: it provides ethnographic reporting of local religious practices in the People's Republic of China (PRC)... Probably the most sophisticated study of contemporary popular Chinese religion that has yet appeared."--Alan Hunter, Sociology of Religion "This excellent ... book breaks new ground in several interrelated areas: its combination of fieldwork with the collection and study of texts and inscriptions, the inclusive, community-wide base of local religious practices, the role of Daoist priests in a community religion, detailed case studies of the development of popular deities, and the revival of religious festivals in China in the mid-1980s."--Daniel L. Overmyer, Pacific Affairs "Dean has made a major contribution to our understanding of Chinese religion... As an expert tour-guide, eyewitness reporter, archivist, historical interpreter, textual translator, and semiologist, he constructs a valuable multifaceted view of some old and continuously developing religious phenomena."--Scott Davis, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs