VietNamNet Bridge – Ms. Mau’s hair lies like a python on her shoulders. When she dropped it down, the hair swept the ground. Looking from behind, the hair looks like a small papoose, swinging after each move of the woman. 

For the past 17 years, Phung Thi Mau in Chua village, Van Thang commune, Ba Vi district, northern province of Ha Tay, has carried hair of 5kg in weight and more than 1.5m in length.

This strange hair has caused many troubles for Ms. Mau. She has planned to cut it several times but each time she planned to do that, her head began to hurt painfully, like someone tightened a rope around her head.

Peculiar stories

Before going to Ms. Mau’s house, reporters tried to imagine the strange hair, which has been recorded in the book of strange stories of Vietnam, but they were still very surprised by what they saw.

Ms. Mau’s hair lies like a python on her shoulders. When she dropped it down, the hair swept the ground. Looking from behind, the hair looks like a small papoose, swinging after each move of the woman.

The odd story about this hair commenced on the night of December 15, 1990 (lunar calendar). Ms. Mau remembers very clearly that night, with bright moonlight. That night, she couldn’t sleep well. She had just a wink of sleep when delirium came.

In the morning on the next day, she combed her hair normally but it was strange because it was no longer smooth as before. It was very tangled. The more combing, the more tangled the hair was. The comb’s teeth were broken after her try to comb the hair. Ms. Mau used another comb but the situation was the same. She found that her hair was stuck together for a section of around 22cm long. In the morning on the next day, all of her hair was stuck together and she couldn’t disentangle it anymore.

A relative told Ms. Mau that her hair was clotted and advised her to not try to disentangle it. At that time Ms. Mau started and immediately thought of her paternal grandmother, who suffered the same thing. The grandmother after that became mad. She was normal during the day but she sang and danced the whole night and didn’t remember anything the next morning.

Ms. Mau worried that one day she could became mad like her grandmother. She immediately took scissors to cut off the clotted hair but that night, she was ill. She was on her back for several weeks after that event.

Ms. Mau tried every way to deal with the odd hair. She washed the hair with everything that people told her but nothing could make her hair become normal. The hair, along with time, has stuck together more firmly and turned solid.

Hearing that there was a fortune-teller in Hai Duong Province who could ‘return’ her smooth hair, Ms. Mau and her husband went to Hai Duong to meet that man.

Her husband, Tran Van Nuoi, related that after a period of time of worshipping, that fortune-teller used a comb, which was said to be the comb of the holy, to comb Ms. Mau’s hair. But that comb did nothing for the hair. Getting angry, the fortune-teller sought scissors, which he said to be granted by the holy as well, to cut Ms. Mau’s hair.

Like the previous time, Ms. Mau was ill that night. Since then (1994), she hasn’t dared to touch her strange hair anymore. Since she decided to live in peace with the hair, she has been in good health.

An answer from scientists needed 

Ms. Mau and her strange hair

Now, looking at Ms. Mau’s hair, one can imagine various things because the hair bun is small in some sections and big in others and has the colour of corn silk.

When the hair began to clot, Ms. Mau always heard a crackling sound from her hair, which was sometimes low and sometimes high, depending on her health. According to Mau, she didn’t pay attention to that sound but when knowing that it came from her hair, she was very scared.

After nearly 20 years, Mau’s hair is now over 1.5m long and over 5kg in weight. She still washes her hair on her own. However, each time of washing the special hair, Mau needs several hours to struggle with it, with one hour to make it clean and one-two hours to make it dry, using a large electric fan.

The odd hair not only causes troubles for Mau in her daily life, but also her income. When the hair began to stick together, people from everywhere came to see her hair and after that, they were afraid of the hair. Many strange stories were built up around Mau’s hair, for example she was possessed by ghosts and she was persecuted by magic, etc.

Ms. Mau is now familiar with those stories and she doesn’t want to challenge them anymore. However, those stories have made her family’s stall at the local market unmarketable.

In her family, there are Ms. Mau and her paternal grandmother who have faced this special phenomenon. However, the clotted hair of Mau’s grandmother was small like a big toe and stretched to the middle of her back. At the age of 83, her hair suddenly fell out and Mau’s grandmother died. Perhaps this is a strange case that needs the involvement of scientists to unlock.

(Source: Gia Dinh)

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