The other day my friend Alexia asked me if I had a Japanese ear cleaner.
“What? A Japanese ear cleaner?”
She says, “You know, the one made of bamboo.”
Oh, yes, the ear cleaner, the “mimi-kaki.” Of course I have one. Alexia’s ears are tickling, and she wants to poke it with the mimi-kaki.
When I was a kid, one of my favorite things was to put my head on my grandmother’s lap while she went digging in my ears with one of those bamboo ear cleaners with a little fluffy thing on the other end that sweeps off the residues of ear wax. Sometimes she would accidentally poke my ear canal, but it mostly felt ticklingly good. I would be fascinated by the stuff she would excavate from my ear. I think this ear cleaning ritual had some comforting effect for us Japanese. Only a few years ago, I heard there were what they called “mimi-kaki cafes” sprouting up in Tokyo, where stressed businessmen go to get their ears cleaned by some yukata- (summer version of Kimono)-clad young women. They claim, “Nothing more than ear cleaning!” Ear cleaning for comfort . . .
I love this. What a sweet story . . . And perfect writing, to boot! (Thanks for including the illustration of the mimi-kaki, which in itself is a work of art—the 3 little photos, the way they’re laid out.)