We listened as the Buddhist nuns chanted, an afternoon ritual, surrounded by the sweet smelling smoke from countless sticks of incense. It was a temple on a backstreet of Guangzhou, one of the largest and oldest cities in China.

“People pray for different things now,” the guide told me. She was a woman in her early 50s, tall, a northerner, with a strong jaw and eyes that smiled before her lips.

“Before, they might have prayed for their farms, or their families,” she said, “Now, parents will pray that their children get into a good university. Young people will pray they get a promotion.”

Ancient beliefs changing: Can a culture with 5000 years of history still hold to the old, while embracing the new? The old: A cornerstone. The new: A beacon of modernization and change.

Our group wandered among the buildings, quiet and respectful. Monks in orange robes walked with purpose over the 500-year-old cobblestones. Nuns chanted at another shrine, as they do each afternoon. Their words were read from battered, handwritten books.

I stepped back and surveyed the temple, Guangxiao Si, one of the oldest in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China. As the sun set, the city of 10 million seemed far away.

Our guide had not followed. I spotted her in front of the main hall, in the shadow cast by the roof. She stood before the massive golden Buddha, incense sticks held between her palms. arms raised high. She hadn’t prayed when visited the building earlier.

What did she pray for? The old? The new? Both? She was a modern Chinese woman, with a condo, a car, and a grown daughter. Prayers for her family? Her career?

It was a private moment I was not meant to see. I turned towards the chanting and the setting sun. In the distance, if you listened, horns were blaring as the afternoon rush hour began.

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