I've visited many counties and villages where the local tourism bureaus were eager to show off their big projects.

Although the attractions range from hotels to amusement parks to Buddhist mountain retreats, they all share a common goal: to become hugely popular and attract millions of tourists - and their cash - every year.

The last project I visited, hidden in a remote village in Zhejiang province, aims to combine figures from Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity in a religious theme park. The main investors are said to have sunk 1 billion yuan ($160 million) into the attraction.