How do you clean your ears? (Or do you?)

The way I understand it, the Western style is to use Q-tips. This probably happens after a shower when the interior of the ears have been nice and moist for awhile, softening any sort of earwax you might have built up. Some rubbing around catches that stuff and whisks it out. Or something like that… I can’t actually vouch for it since I don’t clean my ears that way. What I’m used to is the Eastern way, which I’m sure Eastern Asians in particular are familiar with, if not our more southern counterparts too.

Tools of the trade.

Cleaning your ears becomes a bonding event since it requires the assistance of someone else. They take an ear scooper – sometimes metal, sometimes bamboo – and gently make their way down your ear canal as you lay on your side and they shine a light in your ear. Your earlobe gets pulled this way and that to help straighten out your ear canal for easier viewing. When a bit of earwax is targeted, the cleaner gently lowers the ear scooper in, using the little spoon-like curve to try to scoop out the piece. This may take a little gentle scratching around the area to loosen the earwax if you have the dry kind, or quite a few scoops to get the sticky wet kind. Either way, it’s a practice in patience, determination, and trust. Both sides have to remain relatively steady and slowly maneuver to get the earwax. I’ll even incorporate tweezers when a piece can be pinched away from the wall of the ear. It’s a delicate procedure that requires quite a bit of care. After all, you don’t want to cause any bleeding or pain in the dainty skin of the ear canal. You could very well create hearing impairment!

I quite enjoy having my ears cleaned and sometimes I ask for them to get a little bit of scratching even if there’s nothing to clear. Sometimes my ear canals just itch for a little bit of attention. It must be something born of the habit of cleaning my ears that way. It’s a part of the Chinese culture that definitely stayed with me.