Issue 10
The Art of Ear Picking
By Laura Fumiko KeehnPhotos By Aaron Farley
It’s sensitive, private and very personal. A part of the body you would only share with someone you trust and love. That’s right, I’m talking about…your ears.
In Japan, cleaning your man’s ears is a time-honored tradition, a romantic act signifying intimacy. The Japanese mother of an exboyfriend was once horrified when she saw her son using an ear picker to clean out his own ear. “I always picked my husband’s ears,” she said in an accusatory tone. Point taken, it’s the duty of the girlfriend or wife to lovingly clean her man’s ears.
In modern Japan, even the romantically challenged can get his ears cleaned. There are stores specializing in the service. Yamamoto Mimikaki (Yamamoto Ear Picking) offers the full ear picking service: the customer can lay his head on the woman’s lap as she cleans your ears “just the way you like it” and most enticing of all, all the women wear yukata—a relaxed, usually colorful traditional kimono.
It’s not just the clothing that’s colorful either. Japanese ear pickers bear absolutely no resemblance to the functional but, quite frankly, dull Q-tip. The Japanese ear picker is long and thin with a gentle scoop at one end. It is traditionally made of bamboo and decorated with a colorful charm. Tourist shops stock location-themed ear pickers, while dollar stores stock glow in the dark pickers shaped like cartoon characters and more. Historians will have you believe this charmingly decorative ear picker descends from the bright and beautiful hair accessories worn by women in the Edo era. Which means that at some point, somebody must have started sticking their hairpins in their ear. Hygienic issues aside, this goes some way to explain the feminine and nurturing connotations ear picking has in Japan. A far cry from the sterile and purely functional act ear picking is for most Americans. Physical difference may be behind the variations in the style of the Japanese ear picker versus the American Q-tip. Studies show that wet earwax is most common in those of European and African descent, while East Asians have dry, powdery earwax. That explains the catch copy on the packaging of one ear picker: “no more powdery ear.” That also explains the lack of Q-tip use, as a cotton swab head would be almost ineffectual in cleaning out compacted powder in the ear canal.
An ear-cleaning technician at the ear-cleaning clinic Mimikurin explained that Westerners do indeed have different earwax from her Japanese customers. “It’s softer and easier to clean,” she said, perhaps to make me feel better about having disgusting Western earwax. She then explained to me that even Westerners should avoid using Q-tips, as they succeed in pushing in more wax then they take out. Apparently, the Q-tip should be used only to clear out residue around the ear.
Compared to the somewhat sexual nature of the service offered by Yamamoto Mimikaki, Mimikurin had a much more medical approach. The patient sits in what looks like a dentist’s chair facing a TV monitor. The ear-cleaning technician then uses an ear picker with a build-in camera. The patient is treated to a view of the inside of his or her ear, and gets to watch the wax being cleared away. Despite this sterile and professional approach, the technicians are all women and the customers mostly men.
So, whether your ear is cleaned with a cute and colorful ear picker, or cleaned by a charming young woman, the Japanese believe that clearing away your earwax is a fully enjoyable ritual.