For the last thirty years, since 1990, an elderly woman has lived in the temple of Huye Phuoc (Vietnam). Her hair, which reaches about six meters in length, is braided into a tangle, a kind of dreadlock. It resembles a long snake.
Because of her hair (and not at all because of its length), this resident of Vietnam has become famous: she has not cut or washed her hair for more than half a century (sixty-four years, to be exact). Why she made such a decision is discussed further in the article.
She spends a lot of time praying and reciting mantras and leads a modest lifestyle. She has long hair and only eats vegetarian food once a day. According to Nguyen Thi Dinh, such an ascetic lifestyle helps her to keep her strength of mind and body. People who have talked to her admire her optimism and active lifestyle.
Her younger years and her decision
When she was very young, the girl noticed a pattern: as soon as she washed her hair or had a haircut, she began to feel unbearable headaches. Nguyen was so tormented and exhausted by migraines that she decided to experiment and try to eliminate washing and cutting hair from her life. Experience had shown that there was a correlation between migraines and washing one’s hair.
Nguyen decided to see if it was a coincidence and went back to her previous lifestyle. But along with the shampoo, comb and barber scissors, her migraine symptoms came back into her life. The doctors to whom the Vietnamese woman went to only shook their hands. They could not explain the cause-and-effect relationship between washing her head and her migraine.
Thi Dinh was faced with a difficult choice: care for her head or her health. Unbearable suffering in the form of headaches was a weighty argument, and at 19 years old, the young beautiful girl was forced to sacrifice washing her hair and abandon her dreams of fancy haircuts.
At first she worried how people around her would treat her, whether they would avoid her because of a possible unpleasant smell. But various perfume tricks and tricks helped her cope with the problem. And people tried to step in and not judge the woman.
Her hair length increased by about 10 centimeters a year. And by her 83 years, the woman grew a long braid. Although her head is now completely gray, the grown-out ends of her hair remain brown, which reminds the Vietnamese woman of her youth.