Farmers racked by climate change and uncertainty have found security in processing hair for Chinese wig makers
Although the villages of Meiktila, in Mandalay region, are small, their monasteries and schools are now grand as any in Myanmar’s biggest cities. The women sport gold and jewels.
Locals in one village are now so well off a bank branch has opened just to serve them.
In the past two decades, as the effects of climate change make farming more difficult, locals have turned to another, perhaps unexpected natural resource for their livelihoods: human hair.
Imported from south Asia and occasionally sourced locally, the hair is untangled, processed and combed smooth here, before being exported to Chinese wig manufacturers.
The change of industry has paid off handsomely. Locals say that, since 2010, business has been booming.
“After opium, hair is the fastest route to wealth,” goes a proverb often heard now in the villages in the townships of Yamethin, Pyawbwe and Thazi, where the streets are lined with small shops of women untangling clumps of hair.
The trade began in Thazi and Pyawbwe townships in 1997, according to locals, but didn’t really take off until 2007, when the number of hair retailers and wholesalers increased.
By 2010 detanglers were popping up in villages all around Meiktila township.
“Pyawbwe would not exist without hair,” one business owner told Myanmar Now.
People have begun calling it “Hair City.”
Global supply chains
Pyawbwe township was traditionally an agricultural town, with onions farmed on its west side and chilli pepper on its east. The produce was sold internationally.
But fluctuating prices and the effects of climate change, including droughts, have caused many to abandon agriculture over the last two decades, turning to the new “black gold.”
Though some hair is sourced locally, there is not enough domestic supply to satisfy the international market’s demand, say shop owners.
Most of the hair is imported from India and Bangladesh, crossing the border from Mizoram in India into Falam in Chin state by car, but some traders ship by air.
“We send buyers to get the hair and we transport it mainly by car, crossing and paying taxes at the Rikhawdar crossing”, shop owner Aung Naing Win, who goes by the nickname Kinzana, told Myanmar Now.
They pay between two and four million kyat for 30kg bundles, then sell them in Myanmar for 5 or 6 million kyat. Prices depend on length, colour and quality.
Most traders buy 1 to 5 billion kyat worth at a time, though larger traders will spend up to 10 billion kyat.
Kinzana said he owns four detangling shops in Pyawbwe that employ about 100 permanent workers and over 100 others paid by the day or by bundle of hair processed.
Salaries range from 80,000 to 500,000 kyats a month, depending on skill, he said.
Once processed, most of the hair is sent along the Mandalay-Muse highway to China, where traders and shop owners said demand is only increasing.
Xuchang City, in China’s Henan province, is home to the world’s largest wig manufacturer. That city’s wig economy accounted for over $3 billion in 2018, according to the newspaper China Daily.
China exports most of its finished wigs to Nigeria.
Traders told Myanmar Now that Myanmar buyers must compete for quality hair with Indian and Bangladeshi buyers, who also ship directly to China, but that Myanmar has secured its place in the supply chain as detangler and processor.
“This is actually an Indian and Bangladeshi business. They’ve been doing it for a long time, making money by exporting hair to China,” Kinzana said. “But now, we are sharing in that business”.
The process
The hair is first soaked in a chemical bath from 45 minutes to an hour. Workers then use fine needles to loosen the knotted clumps, toiling away from 8 am to 4 pm. On an average workday, a detangler can turn about 35 ticals of hair into tangle-free strands, earning 3,500 to 4,000 kyats.
Compared to the low wages earned harvesting vegetables beneath a scorching sun, many said they’re happy for the new trade.
“I used to harvest cilantro in the plantation for about 1,000 kyats a day. Now I untangle hair at an indoor shop and, working both a day and a night shift, earn 4,000 kyat,” said Zin Zin Phyo, a Khingyiya village resident that’s been detangling hair for eight years.
The gold on her necklace and earrings glinted in the sun as she spoke.
Most detanglers are women, said Zin Zin Phyo, with many now detangling at home while their husbands work in fields or at other odd jobs. Her husband is a driver.
“Some young girls come to untangle and say they don’t want to go to school. They say they want to quit school because they know we are making money here,” said Thandar Win, of Thanakataw village. “The shop owners have to tell them they don’t accept students”.
While most work in shops, some buy the hair directly from traders and process it at home, with whole families helping to smooth and sort the strands into sellable bundles. The bundles can be sold back to the trader or to other shops, which usually pay more.
After detangling, the hair is pulled across a table fitted with spike nails and used as a table-top comb.
Once combed, it is sorted by length.
“The workers come here to ‘beat’ (the hair),” said shop owner Aung Moe Win, using a colloquialism to refer to the sorting process.
‘Beating’ the hair means separating it into lengths from six to 32 inches at two-inch intervals and bundling like lengths together.
Once bundled, it is ready to be sold and sent abroad.
Kinzana said it takes about 7,000 workers to process one ton (600 viss) of hair.
Building wealth
Kyar Nyunt, a Myanmar citizen born to Chinese parents, lives in nearby Monywa. In addition to owning his own shops in Pyawbwe, he also sells raw clumps of hair to homes there then returns to buy the finished bundles, which he exports directly to China.
Aung Moe Win’s ‘beat’ shop in Pyawbwe employs about 150 people.
“They do a variety of jobs”, he said. “Some are accountants earning about 500,000 kyats a day”.
They’re also provided with food and accommodations, he added.
Combing takes less time than untangling but still requires skill, with the best combers making between 10,000 and 15,000 kyats a day.
A viss of processed hair can earn returns between 10,000 and 30,000 kyats, based on how skillfully the process has been done.
A viss of 6-inch hair goes for about 30,000 kyats while the longest go for between 1.5 to 2 million kyat per viss.
The trade has brought new wealth to the area. The Global Treasure Bank opened a branch at the entrance to Kyeni village to cater to hair workers there.
“We will win the game once we build a wig factory in this country,” he said. “We have to pay transport fees to get it to Muse, and Chinese buyers can set the price. If we had a factory here, the Chinese would have to come here to buy it”.
He has applied with the Monywa government to build a wig factory there and is currently awaiting approval, he said.
Ignored by the authorities
Shop owners said they want an area zoned for their industry but that authorities are uninterested.
“The government doesn’t see hair as a commodity. It’s rubbish to them, foreign waste”, Naing Oo, a small business owner from Pyawbwe, told Myanmar Now.
Myint Soe, an MP for Pyawbwe township constituency 2, said he hasn’t given it much thought, but that he’d prefer using the township’s vacant land to create an industrial zone for auto manufacturing, which he believes will better help develop the region.
Business owners also complain they’re ignored by police.
Hair thieves and fraudsters passing off synthetic hair as human hair go unpunished because officers don’t see it as a legitimate trade, they say.
“They don’t really care when we go to the police for hair-related crimes. They don’t take the crimes seriously,” Kyar Nyunt said.
Health concerns
While most worker and public health officials say working with hair is safe, not everyone is convinced.
Dr Myat Min, a paediatrician from Meiktila, visits nearby villages as a medical volunteer. He told Myanmar Now the growth in the hair industry has coincided with a rise in asthma cases.
“In those villages, all the villagers are asthmatic”, he said. “There is not a single villager who has not suffered from asthma. All the children there have it”.
He said fungi, dust and dandruff can cling to hair and cause respiratory problems for those working with it.
But workers and public health officials disagree.
According to public health department records, there are no cases of detangling causing asthma, said Pyawbwe township first medical officer Kyawt Mu Khin.
Owners told Myanmar Now they used to provide workers with masks in early 2008 and 2009, when the industry began growing, but workers stopped using them so owners stopped providing them.
Most workers Myanmar Now spoke with said they’re unconcerned or do not believe the work can cause asthma.
Myint Myint Khine, 40, from Thanakataw village, used to work in the shops but now buys unprocessed hair and detangles at home.
“No one has ever contracted any diseases from it,” she said.
Her children played amid piles of hair as she detangled clumps of it in front of her home.
“The most important thing is to ensure they know the regulations and abide by them,” said Kyawt Mu Khin.
Either way, each strand of hair is like gold to Sandar Win, an eight-year veteran of the industry from Thanakataw village.
“I used to be disgusted to see hair (in food) here before, but it doesn’t disgust me anymore. Now I’m more afraid of the industry disappearing,” she said.
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