Despite a trend to use rational and utilitarian paradigms to interpret the revival of folk religions, other human motives need to be acknowledged. Humans do behave in their economic and spiritual self-interests. But wider social and structural factors bind people into a moral community. To obtain a broader and more nuanced interpretation of exchange relationships, we apply Marcel Mauss' paradigm of "The Gift" to the ritual life of a Miao Tzu village (an ethnic minority of Southern China). This interpretation accounts for individual motives, such as for physical cures, healthy well-being, and favorable position in the afterlife. Simultaneously, Miao Tzu ritual life binds the community together with reciprocity to restore moral and emotional relationships. Our broader perspective aligns with David Palmer's "religious gift economy" that legitimizes exchange relations with the supernatural as appropriate as with gifting to other humans. Maussian theory lays the foundation for understanding religion, ritual, exchange, and reciprocity in a fundamentally inclusive and holistic way in a Miao Tzu village subject to the state development program.

This article provides a comparative view about the current state of social work education in China and the USA. Social work was established in the USA in 1898 and 1920 in China. In the USA, social work has been revolving in the last 122 years while in China, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, social work was abolished from all higher education institutions. The official year that the Master of Social Work programme was reinstituted in China was 2009; and the first graduate cohort began in 2010. In this globalised twenty-first century, this article also includes how the USA and China can make social work education and its practices as art and science.