Genes in her photos

Fu eventually returned to the US for a second degree in photography, later graduating as the valedictorian of her class. In 2008, she returned to China on a Fulbright scholarship to apply her training in the construction of pop-up books to the documentation of Chinese minorities.

"I want to bring an awareness of these people, because in America people assume you either speak Cantonese or Mandarin," Fu says. "Americans don't understand how wide a variety of people there is beyond Han. I didn't understand why I was different from other Chinese girls growing up - my hair was wavy, and I had big bones, but all I knew was that I didn't feel the same."

Fu has designed pop-up art and other work for Vogue China, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Canon Asia; her work is also archived in the Library of Congress.

The books are strikingly colorful. In one scene, young women of Wa descent whip their dark hair in a ritual swinging dance, paying respect to what they believe to be the "divine" beat of a wooden drum.

In another scene, a Dulong woman's tattooed face grins with rotted teeth against the backdrop of a rushing river. Numbering only 4,600 today, the Dulong people reside in the Tibet autonomous region along the border with Myanmar; their women are tattooed to render them unattractive to neighboring tribes. As of 2009, there were only 40 tattooed women left in the tribe.

Fu will travel to Shanghai this year to continue her documentation of ethnic groups, this time with a focus on southwestern China, she says. She hopes to broaden her focus to include migrant workers, pollution and other topics on which she might collaborate with journalists.

Although Fu has faced criticism for potentially exploiting traditional cultures, she believes she has chosen to portray them the way they would hope to be viewed.

"I think they are beautiful people, and I think their festivals are fun, so I hope that's clear in the work," she says.

"I'll leave the political stuff to other people, because although I understand that there's a history of exploiting 'the other', I'm also 'the other'. I'm not interested in showing the struggle of being poor or disenfranchised, because this project was always about me finding something I became proud of - my heritage."