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In this unique local tradition, roving ear cleaners wield myriad tools to flick, pick and twirl their customers’ ear canals clean.

A high-pitched sound rang out through the shady parks and bustling teahouses of Chengdu, capital of China’s south-western Sichuan province. It pinged and reverberated along the banks of the rivers and canals that wind lazily through the city, down narrow laneways lined with tile-roofed stone houses, and through the aisles of the opera house where masked performers twirl and sing their ancient routines every night. A clanging of some kind, announcing a snack vendor, perhaps? But as it came closer, the sound began to take on an unusual warble. Was it a knife sharpener? A band of piano tuners on the loose?

Finally, the source of the mysterious noise appeared: a long, two-pronged metal device that looked and sounded like a tuning fork. It was clutched in the hand of one of Chengdu’s roving ear cleaners, steady-handed specialists who wield myriad tools to flick, pick and twirl their customers’ ear canals clean.

These ear cleaners are a common sight on the streets of Chengdu, part of a unique local tradition that is believed to date back many centuries. According to cookbook author and Chinese food evangelist Fuchsia Dunlop, who wrote about her experience befriending an ear cleaner while studying in Chengdu in the mid-1990s, the practice dates to the Song dynasty (960-1279). To this day, these men – and less often, women – regularly patrol the city’s popular teahouses, such as the ones in the central People’s Park, and the well-touristed Wide and Narrow Alleys, a maze of reconstructed lanes and Qing dynasty-style buildings. Though they’ll occasionally set up temporary shop for a day with a few chairs, their work continues to be an outdoor, informal affair.

To understand why anyone would pay to have their ear canal probed in public, often before an audience of curious, camera-wielding onlookers, it’s necessary to understand general Chinese attitudes to ear hygiene. While cotton swabs are the norm in the West, in many parts of East Asia, it’s common to use ear scoops – a long, thin tool with one tip flattened into a little spoon – to tease out excess ear wax. My Chinese mother had a bamboo one when I was growing up, though I don’t remember her using it often on us kids.

The Chengdu practice, however, takes ear cleaning much further. Tao er (掏耳), or ‘ear scooping’, as it’s done here, is an elaborate, 20- to 30-minute ritual featuring an array of specialised tools. Devotees might get it done about as frequently as getting their hair cut. And for tourists, it’s a popular memento of a trip to Chengdu. According to a 2016 report from the China News Service, ear cleaners undergo extensive training to develop precision and steadiness before even touching an ear. One exercise has them using tweezers to pluck tiny threads out of a lit candlewick without extinguishing the flame.

In her memoir of 1990s life in Chengdu, Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China, Dunlop described her first ear session as delivering ‘thrilling sensations’ and ‘shivers of pleasure’. With that kind of endorsement, how could I pass up my chance?


A few afternoons after my arrival in the city, I was sipping a bowl of jasmine tea at the Heming teahouse in People’s Park when I heard the pinging of the ear man again. I beckoned him over, and swallowed my nervousness as Master Shu, as his name tag read, adjusted his headlamp and reached toward my ear with a skinny metal prong.

“Will it hurt?” I asked pointlessly. It was already too late to flee.

“Won’t hurt at all,” he murmured. The same thing my dentist always says before flicking on his drill of terror.

There was some twirling around the contours of the ear to begin with, then Master Shu went in for the kill. His probing around in the private recesses of my skull was surprisingly… tolerable. It felt like an awkward tickle, akin to having a sensitive spot on the sole of one’s foot teased very lightly: squirmy discomfort and weird pleasure combined. I tried my best to hold perfectly still – not an easy feat as Master Shu began to tut-tut his disapproval into my ear.

“Very dirty. Too dirty,” he admonished. “You need to do this more often.”

Once he’d removed as much wax as possible, Master Shu switched to a feather-tipped tool, which went deep into my freshly scooped ear canal and made a few gentle twirls. For his finale, he whipped out that tuning fork-like instrument with a flourish, then touched its vibrating prongs against the feather tool, making it buzz against the nerves of my ear in the strangest way. He repeated the whole routine on the other side of my head, then dashed off to his next customer. Though I didn’t emerge with superhuman hearing,like having an out-of-reach it

Chen and his legions of colleagues will carry on doing what they do best: sending their clientele into the blissful throes of relaxation, one ear at a time.