A photo of a boy who arrived at school with a head full of icicles(冰柱）has drawn widespread attention to children from poor rural families.
Wearing only a thin jacket, Wang Fuman, 10, had braved -9C weather to travel over an hour from his village home to reach Zhuanshanbao
Primary School in Zhaotong, Yunnan province.
"After walking more than 4 kilometers through the freezing snow, he arrived with his hair and eyebrows completely frozen, causing laughter among his 16 classmates," said Fu Heng, the school's principal, who uploaded(上传) Wang's photos on Monday morning. Fu added that his classrooms do not have heating because of a lack of money.
After hearing Wang's story, the Yunnan China Youth Development Foundation offered a public donation(捐赠) for children from poor families on Tuesday. It has promised to give each needy child 500 yuan ($75) to help them stay warm in winter. By 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the provincial foundation bad collected over 300,000 yuan in public donations according to their websites.
Wang, who has been nicknamed "Snowflake Boy"(冰花男孩）by netizen (网友),became well-known online. By Wednesday morning, his picture had been 'liked" more than 260,000 times on Sina Weibo. "Many children in cities don't have the strong willpower of this boy. I hope all his efforts will be rewarded(回报)," a netizen wrote on Sina Weibo.
The name Fuman translates as "full of happiness", but Wang does not come from a rich family. He lives in a mud hut(土坯房) with his grandmother and elder sister, and seldom sees his parents because they are migrant workers in other cities.
"I love school. We can have bread and milk for lunch, and we learn lots of things in class," Wang said. His village now has electricity and tap water, "and my family is getting help to build a new house close to the school", he said. "I think our life will get better."
