PINGYAO, Shanxi, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- In 1935, Jiang Youquan, one of the very few female doctors in China then, cured a rural woman surnamed Huang who'd suffered for 32 years from ascites.
A picture that was taken of the therapeutic process has become an eye-catching exhibit of an old-photo show during an ongoing international photography festival in the ancient city of Pingyao in northern Shanxi Province.
Wang Qiuhang, a curator from the city of Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang Province, is displaying his collection of 100 photos taken between 1860 and 1949 featuring Chinese women at the seven-day Pingyao International Photography Festival (PIP).
"I have been collecting pictures not of female celebrities, but of ordinary women, many of whom remain anonymous to me," Wang said.
With Chinese and English captions, the photos Wang has selected to display at the PIP tell stories, for instance, of aged mothers, children with bound feet, girls in an orphanage, prostitutes, female college students and women playing harmoniums.
When photography was first introduced into the country in the mid-19th century, Chinese people were terrified of being photographed, believing their souls would be taken away with the clicking of the shutter, Wang said.
"In the earliest pictures of Chinese women, smiles were barely seen and their faces were often stiff," Wang said.
