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Modern Chinese popular culture is awash with representations of the country's imperial past. The beautiful heroine oppressed by an aged official or landowner has become a cliched staple of Chinese cinema, while on television, series after series draw on dynastic history or legendary tales for inspiration. Our historical imaginations are dominated by these fake snapshots of life in feudal China.
An extraordinary exhibition at the Museum of Chinese History in October shattered many rose-tinted spectacles. Three hundred and sixty-five photographs taken by Auguste François, the French consul general in Yunnan, between 1896 and 1904 starkly exposed a vast range of poverty and privilege, brutality and social division.
 After France took control of Indochina in the middle of the nineteenth century, French commercial interests moved north into Yunnan seeking to exploit the region's copper, tin and timber resources. When François arrived in Kunming in 1896, his job was to help facilitate this process; later he was also to oversee the extension of the Indochina railway into Yunnan. This was a turbulent period, spanning the Boxer Rebellion and a number of local revolts, but François fell in love with the region and seems to have taken his early camera with him wherever he went. The photographic record he made is unique.
It lay hidden for fifty years after François's death in 1935, stored in a box in the cellar of his old home. The French Heritage Protection Association took it over when it was discovered in 1985, but nothing was known of the cache in China until Kunming entrepreneur Yin Xiaojun happened upon an article in a French government publication in 1996. "When I first read about the photographs, I was very curious," said Yin. "I asked some French friends to find out some more details, then in November 1996 I went to France to see them for myself. When I saw them for real, I was astonished. I realized these were precious relics, and I felt a strong sense of responsibility to bring them back to China."
Yin entered six months of negotiations with the French side. With the help of fellow Kunming businessman Luo Qingchang, he eventually paid 1 million yuan for the rights to 400 out of the 1,000 pictures in François's collection. After taking the photos on tour around the country, he plans to donate most of them to historical research institutes, and put the rest on permanent show in a specially built old-style house in Kunming. "I hope young people can see the differences between today and the past with the help of these photos," said Yin. "From them we can see how backward China was, and feel the pressure of responsibility for what we should do for our country." 
François was an unflinching cameraman. He took pictures of rebels and fallen officials both before and after execution, and recorded the effects of leprosy and grinding poverty in harsh detail. "I haven't seen a single Chinese person who looks happy," said one Beijing visitor to the exhibition. "They all look hungry."
One of the most striking features of the exhibition was how many of the photographs looked as if they could have been taken last year, rather than last century. "China develops so slowly," said To Fu Tat from Hong Kong. "In recent years it's faster, but still slow."
 Yao Manhua, a pensioner from Kunming, was deeply impressed. "We should be grateful to François, even though he was a colonialist," she said. "This is a precious record of the rebellions and the punishment meted out. Usually we only see re-enactments on TV or at the movies, but this is real - it's very moving."
The pictures of old buildings should also be an education for the people who demolish our heritage. I hope officials see this exhibition and learn that they should protect old buildings."
Others drew a simpler lesson: "To see how China was 100 years ago just makes me appreciate life today," said Han Jicheng from Heilongjiang. | 
