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Ear pick color will be shipped randomly
Size: Length 8CM
Material: High-quality stainless steel + plastic
Weight: 0.009 kilograms
digear pickAlso known as ear pick, this is a common item in China, known to everyone. It is a small tool specially designed for digging earwax. You can still find it sold in the streets and alleys.
The shape of the ear pick is very simple, with a slender handle and a small spoon at the end of the handle. "Spoon, to take. Illustrative. There is a solid center, with the same meaning as the package, all spoon-related items follow the spoon." (Shuowen Jiezi). Its material includes bamboo, wood, ivory, horn, bone, jade, iron, copper, silver, and gold, which is small and elegant, and can be inserted into the ear hole to dig.
When was this ear-cleaning tool originated? According to archaeological finds, it won't be later than the Shang Dynasty. Among the large number of cultural relics unearthed from the Queen Mother Huo's tomb at Anyang, there are two jade ear scoopers carved in the shape of a fish, with clear patterns and exquisite workmanship. This Queen Mother Huo was the royal consort of King Wuding of the Shang Dynasty, who once commanded the army to conquer the west as a great general, and she was also the earliest known female archer in China.
A gold ear pick was discovered in a tomb in Nanchang, Jiangxi. The tomb's owner was Gao Rong, a person from the Eastern Wu state during the Three Kingdoms period, and he came from a prominent and wealthy family. The gold ear pick, weighing 9 grams and measuring 24 centimeters in length (compared to a typical ear pick of about 10 centimeters), shows the special status of his identity.
According to the "Qingyi Lu" records, the Tang Dynasty Prime Minister Du Zong called the "ear scoop" (ear spoon) as "Tie Li Jie Shi", which was made of fine iron. It can be seen that these great figures also cannot do without this item.
In the Ming Dynasty novel "The Ever-waking World", there is a term called "digging ears as a greeting". It means that when seeing someone raise their hand to dig their earwax, they mistakenly think it is a greeting to themselves. This also shows that the use of ear scrapers was also very common in the Ming Dynasty.
In my birthplace of Xiangtan, to this day, in some of the traditional barber shops, in addition to cutting hair, the barbers also offer back massages and ear cleaning services. They use long-handled silver ear pickers, and customers are asked to tilt their heads, allowing the barber to gently and delicately clean the ear wax, which is a delightful experience.
People have earwax, and they dig it with their fingernails. If the fingernails don't work, they use sticks or ear scoopers made of plants or wood. This is a common situation in life. The special tool for digging earwax - ear scoopers, although they look like an insignificant everyday item, their history is not short.
There is an idiom called "digging for a call," which means that when someone sees someone else digging their ears, they think it's a way to call them. This idiom appears in the Ming Dynasty novel "The Ever-waking World," Volume 28: "The Wu official was worried about Miss He, and he couldn't sleep well all night. In the morning, when he was invited by the He magistrate, it was just like digging for a call."
It seems that the saying 'digging ears' has existed for 400 years; however, whether it was done with a spoon is unknown.
The 'Qing Yi Lu' records that Prime Minister Du Zong called the 'ear scoop' the 'iron to finish'. Du Zong was a person from the Wu Zong period of the Tang Dynasty, which indicates that specialized tools for ear cleaning already existed in the Tang Dynasty, and they were generally known as 'ear scoop'. This nickname also tells us that the ear scoop was made of iron, and it was used to clean earwax, which was done with one use. This nickname is quite interesting. It proves that the Tang people used ear scoops, and it also proves that ear scoops have a history of over 1000 years.
