(ECNS) -- A woman from Southwest China's Sichuan Province has been included in Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc's project to capture beauty around the world.
Zhang Ran, 27, runs a clothing store in the province's Leshan city, which is home to the Mount Emei Scenic Area that includes the Leshan Giant Buddha, the world's largest stone-carved buddha.
Zhang said she happened to meet the photographer while picking up goods in the provincial capital Chengdu. She rejected the photographer's invitation at first, but then agreed after seeing her other works, the Chengdu Economic Daily reported.
She didn't care much for the photography at the time, and only realized in recent days that she had suddenly become an online celebrity.
Noroc has visited 45 countries for her Atlas of Beauty project. She arrived in China last August and visited Beijing, Guangzhou, and Gansu province.
She wrote on her website that "beauty means to keep alive your origins and your culture - in particular, to be natural, sincere and authentic, and not necessarily fashionable."
Zhang's photo has gone viral on Chinese Internet sites and has generated discussion about what constitutes beauty.
A post about the photo by the National Business Daily on Weibo received 21,670 comments and 34,683 "likes".
A netizen said there's no need for oriental women to undergo cosmetic surgery to meet Western aesthetic standards, because it is their differences that make them beautiful already.
Weibo user @ZJ_Heart said the Leshan woman is truly beautiful, gorgeous, and classical.
