To examine the perceptions and experiences of Chinese university students blood donors. A semi-structured, face-to-face interview was conducted with 19 university students blood donors and an inductive thematic analysis was performed to analyze the interview. Five themes were generated from data analysis, that is, participants' attitudes toward blood donation, donation disincentives, ways of improving donation rate, participants' feelings and perceptions at different stages of the donation, and the influence of traditional Chinese culture on blood donation. Although participants have positive attitude toward blood donation, many of them have relatively little knowledge concerning blood donation or the donation system in China. It also found that cultural beliefs played a two-sided role in blood donation. On the one hand, some principles in traditional Chinese culture may have a negative influence on blood donation; on the other hand, doctrines of "benevolence" and "Love" in Confucius philosophy worked as an incentive to blood donation among university students. Thus, it would be necessary to take effective measures to make more university students access to the knowledge of blood donation. Community approaches such as stakeholder management and peer education conducted by student voluntary blood donors might be of great help to achieve a higher donation rate, which could be beneficial to the development of voluntary blood donation in China.