In Thailand, a veteran hairstylist is visiting various hospitals and offering her services to health workers to provide a much-needed morale boost for frontliners.
Pornsupa Hattayong, a 43-year-old hairstylist, was wary at first on how her hairstyling services would be received as she felt it too trivial amid the current global crisis. With salons and barbershops ordered closed during the quarantine, many have not been able to get their hair cut, especially health workers who have been occupied in hospitals since the virus outbreak. Pornsupa then decided to visit a hospital and see if there were any health workers who would want to avail of her services, hoping to service six people at most. On her first visit, she was able to give haircuts to 30 people. Her second hospital visit had a turnout of 50 people.
Pornsupa and her hairstylist friends at the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration General Hospital (Photo from Associated Press)
Pornsupa was overwhelmed by the positive response to her services and soon invited her other friends to join her. In an interview with Associated Press, Pornsupa shared, “The doctors are so happy to get a haircut. It’s like we lift something off their chest, perhaps not chest but head. I think they feel lighter and relaxed.” Despite not earning from her job, Pornsupa decided to give this small offering for free to frontliners who have worked tirelessly to curb the spread of the virus. She also makes sure to wear full protective gear to protect herself and the health workers, even when this can limit her movements, and also cleans all her equipment with alcohol after every customer.
In an interview with The Star, Dr Teerapat Jittpoonkuson, a health worker in a hospital that Pornsupa visited, shared, “It feels like more of a kindness given to our hospital staff. This is more than a haircut.”
Even the little things can do so much in a time when we need all the compassion and positivity we can give and receive, even from something as simple as a haircut.
SEA Wave magazine’s SEAtizens initiative is a series of inspiring stories of people in Southeast Asia who champion the human spirit by demonstrating courage, ingenuity, generosity, and selflessness amidst the current crisis.