Taiwan photographer trains his lens on the "golden marriages" of nation's ethnic groups. Zhang Zixuan reports.

Taiwan photographer Lin Tianfu has met the most couples from the various ethnic groups on the mainland and in Taiwan province, whose marriages have lasted more than 50 years, the so-called "golden marriages".

Lin's photo exhibition, The Love of Half Century, is part of the ongoing 2011 Pingyao International Photography Festival (Sept 19-25), at the old town of Pingyao, Shanxi province. While the 51-year-old has received much praise for his photographs, it is The Love of Half Century that has won him the most acclaim.

Lin, who started the series in 1992, explains his motive for the project saying, "This is something fragile modern marriages can use for reference."

The first few couples that Lin interviewed and portrayed were all from the Han ethnic group. But soon Lin found that the similarity of their love stories was killing the diversity of the theme. So Lin decided to accept his friends' suggestions to expand his interviews to other ethnic groups.

Lin soon found that finding "golden marriage" couples from the smaller ethnic groups posed quite a challenge. After much searching, when he managed to get their addresses, he would find that they had moved. Even among those he pinned down eventually, many would refuse to be photographed, citing the superstitious belief that doing so could invite bad luck.

Finally, though, Lin managed to take more than 200 wonderful black-and-white photos and document the stories behind them, some of which read stranger than fiction.

Zhao Simei, was a young Yao girl growing up in Vietnam, who often used to visit her relatives living across the border in Yunnan province. On one of these visits, Li Chengzhao, a local, forced the then 22-year-old beauty to marry him. Outraged, Zhao did not speak a word to him for the first 20 years of their marriage. But half a decade and 11 children later, the couple show no sign of strain in their relationship.

Those couples who agreed to be photographed and interviewed appeared before the camera in their representative costumes, some even holding hands publicly for the first time.

Some continue to keep in touch with Lin. He Shixiu and his wife, from Yunnan's Naxi group, invited Lin to photograph them again at their 70th wedding anniversary and have already booked another photo session for their 80th.

Lin says the only one of China's 56 ethnic groups not represented in the project is its smallest - the Lhoba - who are found mainly in the southeastern Tibet autonomous region. He says he will continue till this blank is also filled.

Lin has now settled down in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and says he loves its beautiful landscape. More importantly, his beloved wife, who is a Hunan native, also works there.

"I hope my marriage will also be as long and beautiful as those in my photos."

Zhan Qianhui contributed to the story.