ABSTRACT
Women have managed the return of Chinese folk religion to a prominent place in Chinese life, and orchestrating domestic and holiday rituals is one of a married woman's responsibilities. The prosperity, townization, and new wage-earning potential of women have caused some shifts in village-level thinking, behavior, and family living. Women now have greater opportunities than they had before to do things outside the home but they also have been affected by the reforms differently than men. In Yunnan, in Ruili's Deng Han Nong Village, Dai women are the main stewards of rice production, while men find work in construction and repair work. Gender stereotyping of women as better at the human relations aspects of customer service along with the fear of women being out alone at night or on the road, have helped form the new gender division of labor.
