There might be some hand made dolls among the Bunun people in the mountains of Taiwan that have surprisingly blonde hair.

Like many mothers my mother saved my hair trimmings when I was a child. I have that coloring that means I was born with brown curly hair, that changed to straight, white blonde hair during my childhood. She let my hair grow quite long one year and then gave me a short cut, not much different than a bob. We were poor and didn’t go to a salon so haircuts were simple things. I remember being very sad when she decided my hair needed to be cut. All my friends had long hair and I felt isolated being the only one with short hair.

Not long after she had cut my hair, my 2nd cousin came to visit from Taiwan. He was a missionary (click the link if you’re curious) working in the mountains with the aboriginal people of Taiwan. My mother had cut my hair just to give it to him to take back with him to Taiwan. They thought that since his parishioners had never seen anyone with blonde hair that it would be fun for them. They planned to use it for the hair on some traditional style dolls. This bothered me at the time, and it still does, because no one asked me if it was okay and it was my hair not theirs. That’s a bit of a personal item to just be sending across the ocean. They also dressed me up in the traditional clothing of his parishioners and took my picture after they located me hiding in my closet.

I remember that they were disappointed that I wasn’t happy about any of that and that they laughed at my hesitancy. A child’s consent, back then and in my family, was not considered important. We were to comply and not complain. I hope that we have learned that children deserve better treatment. Whatever we do with their image, health and education has long term consequences. We can be generous with our stuff. It’s not generous to give away someone else’s stuff. I don’t know if they ever made the dolls. I don’t know what happened to my hair, or if the picture survived. It’s been a very long time. But if you’re ever over in Taiwan and you see some odd dolls from the mid-twentieth century with blonde hair, that’s where they originated. Feel free to contact me if you do see any! I would love to know the outcome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunun_people