Tsering Drolkar, a citizen of Lhasa, bought a Tibetan villa last year, which has not only a delicately decorated prayer room on the first floor but also sutra streamers on the roof, blessing curtains under all the windows and gate eaves, and a small furnace to burn joss sticks and fragrant plants.

Even though Tibet has been developing its social economy fast and people's life has been improved a lot, the religious customs remain preserved and popular.

At a remote village in northern Tibet, 50-year-old Dawa Gyaltsen goes to his family shrine on the first floor to change the clean water consecrated for Buddha and add butter to each altar lamps. After doing this morning routine, he goes out with his carpenter tool kit.

Dawa Gyaltsen is a famous carpenter in Xudong Village in Tragya County, Chamdo Prefecture. Thanks for the housing project for farmers and nomads, his family moved into this spacious, bright, and very well equipped two-storey Tibetan house in 2012. He made the family a prayer chamber out of the best room particularly.

Believing in Tibetan Buddhism, he would worship Buddha every day no matter how busy he is.

"Now we have this asphalt road in front of our house leading to the county. There're plenty opportunities to find a job outside to live a better-off life. And we also keep abiding by Buddhism commandments, paying homage to the Yendum Monastery near our village. No such things as stealing, heavy drinking, or killing have ever happened," said him.

Phurbu Tsering is a senior Tibetan man living on the Dekyi Road in Lhasa city. Every morning he would take a ritual walk with a big prayer wheel in hand, "Circumambulating the Jokhang Temple several times a day can be refreshing to the body and the spirit."

Even though many people have had cars, they choose to follow this tradition of ritual walk on foot, which is rather a Buddhism cultivation practice.

Last year, there's a passenger overcrossing built in Lhasa so that pilgrims could cross the roads safer during their ritual walk.

Phurbu Tsering’s son Tseten bought a truck several years ago to run long-distance transportation businesses. The first thing he did after getting the new car was to put a little Buddha statue, a pendent of eight auspicious symbols, and Buddhism sutra into the driving cab.

"I believe in Tibetan Buddhim and wish for Buddha's blessing for peace and safety during travel," Tseten said, adding that with the highway constructed to longer distance in Tibet and with better road conditions he felt safer driving on the long-distance businesses.

On the highway to the Sakya County in Shigaze, rows upon rows of newly-built resettlement houses would come into sight along the road. Different from houses in other places in Tibet, the houses here often have a wall with mixed color of black, white and red that shines unique under the sun.

"Using such three colors to decorate the house suggests that the host believe in the Sakya Sect of Tibetan Buddhism. When we painted these houses years ago, cadres from the village committee all came to help," said Rinchen, Dosha villager in the Sakya County. "Though we have better off life now, we don't lose the religious customs and traditions."

Religious instruments are indispensible from the religious belief. Stores selling religious instruments are dotted everywhere in Tibet and the goods include Thangka paintings, Tibetan incense, niches for a statue of the Buddha, lotus pattern scroll, and nectar vase.

"My average daily income is about 500 to 600 yuan (80 to 96 US dollars). If it is big religious occasion, I can earn 2,000 to 3,000 yuan (320 to 480 US dollars)," said Tashi Lhamo, a manager of a shop selling religious instruments in the Barkhor Street.

Photo shows people pay homage to Buddhas in front of the Thousand Buddha Cliff located in the northern part of the Chakpori Hill southwest to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, capital city of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region. [Photo/China Tibet Online]