New face grown from Xu Jianmei's breast attached in Fuzhow, China

A TEENAGE girl who suffered horrendous burns has been given a new face grown from one of her breasts.

Xu Jianmei, 17, who was horrifically disgured by the fire when she was five, has been able to smile properly for the first time in 12 years.

The pioneering eight-hour operation, which used tissue grown on her breast, was carried out earlier this month by surgeon Jiang Chenhong in Fuzhow, capital city of Fujian province in the southeast of China, BBC News reported.

Miss Xu woke up from the operation - which follows a similar operation to give a car accident victim a new nose by growing it first on his forehead - with a new chin, eyelids and an ear.

"First, we took a piece of blood vessel fascia from her thigh and implanted it in her chest. Then we inserted a skin expander beneath the part of skin where the blood vessel fascia was planted, so that the part could expand and produce enough skin for her new face," Jiang told Chinese news agency Xinhua.

Doctors believe that the wounds left by the surgery will heal over the next several weeks.

"With her new face, she will be able to express herself in a more precise way. She will even be able to blush when her emotions change", said Jiang, "but it may take a long time."

China's first donor face transplant recipient, farmer Li Guoxing, received his new face in 2006 - less than a year after the world's first successful face transplant recipient, Isabelle Dinoir, in France. Mr Li died less than two years later after stopping his anti-rejection medication. Since then 10 surgeries of this kind have been performed in China. VIA

Chinese barber still practising rare art where hair is burned off with hot tongs

When it comes to creating stylish designs Chinese hairdresser Wang Weibu is quite literally hot stuff.

The traditional barber is one of the last still practicing the ancient art of Dahuojia hairdressing, which involves using a pair of red hot metal clamps to burn hair off rather than cut it.

If the hair is too long, the clamps are used like a pair of scissors to cut it to the desired length and then the expert slides the burning hot metal over the rest of the hair to create a perm which he claims lasts up to three months.

This traditional method of cutting hair was widespread in China until it went out of fashion in the 1980s. Now hardly anybody wants a haircut using the unusual method.

Mr Weibu, 73, said: 'It's not just a shortage of hairdressers offering the method, there are also not very many customers that are interested in it any more. It is mainly older people that come to my shop nowadays. And like me one day they won't be here any more either.' 

Indonesian woman spends 19 years hiding behind a head scarf because she grew a beard after birth of her first child

Agustina Dorman found it unbearably painful to shave her goatee so was forced to let it grow - and now she is showing it off in newly released photos. After years of hiding her thick black facial hair under a hijab, Agustina Dorman, 38, has stepped proudly out and embraced her condition.
The Indonesian woman first noticed the hair sprouting on her face when she was 25, just days after the birth of her first child. Dismayed at what she saw in the mirror, she hid away and refused to see her friends and neighbours in her small village of Penaga, Indonesia.

But the brave woman has decided to ditch the clothing - regardless of the stares and unwanted attention she now attracts. Agustina said that whenever she tried to cut or shave her beard she experienced excruciating pain, so in the end she let it grow.

But scared that her children - aged 19 and three - would be bullied, Agustina hid away under the hijab. The unlucky woman also has a mild moustache and facial hair, and she at last felt she could hide it under the thick clothing.

But she says her eldest child began to get teased from others who found out about her unfortunate condition. It led her to confront her children's tormentors by unveiling herself and freely walking around their village for the first time.

She still gets taunted by some but others have accepted her in to the community whole-heartedly.She hopes that through education about her condition, people will become accepting of her appearance.

Earlier this year, German bearded lady Mariam appeared on Daytime TV to reveal she still felt sexy with her stubble.

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