Students from Shanghai East Experimental School sit for a hair cut during a charity drive. The chopped hair are used to make wigs for cancer patients.(Ti Gong)
Call it a hair-raising event — quite literally.
Nine-year-old Xiang Jiayi was reluctant to lose her long, soft hair, but she did not regret doing it for a good cause.
"I feel for the kids who suffer from leukemia," said Xiang, a third-grader from Shanghai East Experimental School who joined 29 others yesterday to donate their hair to the Tsingsi Hair Donation Organization, which collects them to make wigs for cancer patients.
Tsingsi, a students body based at Shanghai International Studies University, says it has received over 500 donations, and that 186 of them have been passed on to the Cancer Foundation of China.
The hair idea is relatively new in China, but it is already gaining public interest. Xu Jia, a 35-year-old woman who works as a receptionist at a freight agency, was among the donors in Lujiazui yesterday.
She got in touch with Tsingsi after reading about a foreigner growing long hair only to donate it for cancer patients.
"I always had long hair since I was 10 years old. I was close to tears when the hairdresser cut it just now, but I strongly agree with the cause and will donate my hair again and again in the future," said Xu, whose waist length hair was cut to shoulder height.
Tao Hong, 20, who works as a salesgirl at a food store next to the spot where the event took place, said she had never heard of such a cause before but quickly took a decision to donate.
"I was considering a new look. Since I would have cut my hair anyway, why not make it more meaningful?" she said.
Tsingsi said as word about the initiative spread on the social network, donations rose substantially.
"We received only 20-something donations from December last year to March this year, but since then there has been a sharp increase. Now we get five or six donations daily and they come from all over the country," said Qiao Zhenni, who heads the organization.
Tsingsi has tied up with Rebecca, a leading wig retailer based in Henan Province.
"The Cancer Foundation said it cannot accept anymore donations at the moment because our previous donations are still being put into use," said Wei Yan'er, one of the founder members of Tsingsi.
Rebecca, which makes the wigs for free for Tsingsi, said it was its first charity initiative.
"Making wigs out of readily available hair saves costs because a part of the cost of making wigs lies in looking for quality hair," said Maggie Lu, who works as a manager of the operational department of the company. "While good quality wigs on the market are expensive, we believe this initiative will relieve the financial burden of those in need the most," Lu said.
Wigs produced by Rebecca will be distributed to a few hospitals in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Tsingsi said.
Meanwhile, Meilianshe, a hair salon with over 600 stores all over China, said it would like to contribute more to the cause. "Had we known about it earlier, we would have done it already," said Li Hui, a manager at Meilianshe.
Tsingsi said it would be great to cooperate with chain hair salons but it lacks the funds to support the idea, and therefore was currently focusing on individual donors.
Tsingsi said interested donors can get in touch with them through e-mail: jfgychina@163.com or on its WeChat account "qingsixingdong." The hair should not be shorter than 25 centimeters or permed or dyed for at least two years.
Hair loss is a common side effect of chemotherapy treatment for many cancer patients. It generally starts to happen a few weeks after chemotherapy starts. For most people, regrowth begins not long after chemotherapy has ended. Not all people will lose their hair to chemotherapy, however.
A National Cancer Registration Center of China report said about 3,37 million Chinese were diagnosed with cancer in 2011.
