A DILIGENT schoolboy whose hair froze after walking miles to sit an exam will receive just a fraction of the donations pledged to him. Images of "Snowflake Boy" Wang Fuman captured hearts across the world after the ten-year-old trekked nearly three miles to his school in China in Arctic conditions. Donations worth 500,000 Yuan (£56,000) have flooded in to support the impoverished youngster after the photos went viral - but the government-controlled charity has announced that only £900 will go towards Wang himself.
The local Zhaotong Youth Development Foundation says the remaining £55,000 will be used to help other less-fortunate pupils. According to China National Radio, Chen Furong, the head of Ludian Education Bureau, said they did not want to give too much money to Wang because they wanted to protect him and help him grow up more healthily. But Radio Free Asia reported that some people did not agree with the fact the government-run charity was looking after the donations.
The chubby-cheeked lad became an internet sensation after his headmaster posted photos of the boy's frozen, chapped hands and iced hair and eyelashes. Fu Heng, the headmaster of Zhuanshanbao primary school in Xinjie Township in Ludian County in south-western China's Yunnan Province, said it was the first day of the pupils' final exams.
"The temperatures dropped to arctic temperatures of minus nine degrees Celsius in about 30 minutes that morning," he said. He added that the third-grader lives far away from the school and that he is known as the "class clown", always finding a way to make his 16 classmates laugh. Wang lives with siblings and elderly relatives one of tens of millions of "left-behind children" in China whose parents work in larger cities to earn high wages.
