Waxing nostalgic over ear picks

Do you know what this is?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/Bamboo_ear_pick.jpg/300px-Bamboo_ear_pick.jpg

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In Asia, ear cleaning is a spa specialty, something to be enjoyed and savored. The art of ear cleaning and ear canal massage dates back to imperial times. Skilled ear cleaning masters use a variety of ear picks and scoops to remove wax and to stimulate acupressure points in the ear canal. It may sound gross, but if you grew up in Asia, ear picking is as natural as getting a scalp massage during a shampoo at the hair salon. Once you've experienced it, you just want more.

As a young girl I was mesmerized by ear picks displayed in museum collections... traditional picks made of bamboo, and more elaborate ones made of jade, gold, ivory, embellished with carvings and sometimes with precious stones. 

On the streets of Asia it is not uncommon to see ear cleaning/ear massage stands, a chair or two on a sidewalk, an ear-cleaning master hanging out with a newspaper or magazine until a customer sits down on the chair. 

At home my mother opened up her "ear cleaning shop" every few weeks to give me and my siblings a home spa treatment. One by one we had our turn: we lay our head on mom's lap, waited for her to adjust the flashlight, then closed our eyes while she used the ear pick to do its magic, trying not to giggle or move as the ear pick tickled us. The routine was sweet torture: mostly relaxing and satisfying, punctuated with moments here and there of discomfort. I loved the smell of mom while resting my head on her lap, I loved my siblings' squeals of excitement whenever mom unloosed an unusually big chunk of wax. I loved the sensation of the ear pick poking around in my ear. 

When I was 10 years old my family immigrated to America. Imagine my shock when I learned in my new country that putting anything smaller than your elbow into your ear is BAD! Q-tips are bad. In what universe have I landed? No ear picking in America? 

I've seen ear cleaning stands in Chinatown NYC, Vancouver, and Montreal, but after years of Western indoctrination on the dangers of putting anything, even a Q-tip, into one's ears, have never worked up the nerve to being a customer. My ear spa days are purely a happy memory from childhood. 

(To read more about the art of ear picking in China, click here. And here.)