NANJING - When hairdresser Ma Yujian was diagnosed of late-stage lung cancer two weeks ago, his first reaction was to tell his customers so they could have their prepaid money back.

He put up a notice on the glass door of his workshop in a downtown community in Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu province, reminding his clients to come and get their money before he closed his business on Monday.

Ma's action won him applause from the public as business owners far too often pack up and run with customers' prepaid money.

The news of Ma's illness has been tweeted thousands of times at Weibo.com, China's most popular Twitter-like microblogging service, since Sunday. Many of his customers refused to take their money back and wanted to help pay for his medication.

The customers, mostly residents who have been to Ma's shop, said they were touched by his credibility.

"I just did what I should do," Ma said in an interview with Xinhua Tuesday. "I cannot shortchange the customers in the last days of my life."

Ma and his wife opened the 10-square-meter workshop on Nanjing's Hanjiang Road in 2001. His customers described him as "honest, smiley and having superb hairdressing skills".

Wang Liangting, a Nanjing resident who was the first to tweet Ma's story said, "Our whole family are regular clients. He is friendly and is always ready to help others. He visits the needy and handicapped residents in the community regularly and offers free haircuts."

Ma and his wife spent Saturday and Sunday waiting for customers at the store, said Wang. "He coughed badly and wore a face mask, but he waited until 8 p.m. Sunday."

"We tried to persuade him to keep the money, but he wouldn't listen," said Shen Aiguo, who runs a seafood store next door. "He's only 40, but looks much older and is often short of breath."

Failing to persuade him, Shen took back the money but later deposited ?more cash into Ma's bank account.

After Ma closed his store on Monday, he went to hopstial for chemotherapy. "I fear I will never be able to repay those people's kindness," he said Wednesday.

"Ma is a role model for all private business owners," said Tong Tianwu, secretary-general of Jiangsu provincial consumers' association, a government organization that handles complaints from consumers.

Complaints about overnight disappearances of bankrupt businesses are common in the sectors of laundry, car washing and hairdressing where customers often make pre-payments to get special discounts, said Tong.

"Under such circumstances, Ma is more like a hero," he said. "He has safeguarded his own credibility while helping the public restore some confidence in our society."