Monday, December 20, 2004

dede dede dadada; News quiz, news quiz

Quiz me!
Swaziland. When Preston asks me about what a king does I will refer him to the Swan-Swaz volume of the encylopedia to look up this guy.
Bill pointed out that the Japanese trend is unsettling. I read the article and I think he was referring to the ear cleaning. I am privy today to a bit of knowlege today that I was not six months ago. Thanks to IFC and MPLS/St.Paul magazine I find that ear wax tidbits, like celebrity deaths, come in threes.
There are two kinds of earwax. Chromosome 16 determines whether a human has wet earwax, like me or another euro-african westerner, or dry, like a Japanese guy. Like so many aspects of their culture, the care of the ear is different and a more ritualized part of intimate relationships. In Chinese and Japanese culture there are tools and and techniques that I am way unlikley to encounter.
A Japanese person explains and shares photos from their novelty ear wax tool collections. Hello Kitty?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Back in the day, when I spent a year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, my roommate was an Israeli guy who, because of his father's job, had grown up for about 7 years in Swaziland. He said that the king is really a big deal, and they are actually kind of proud of him, and regard his largesse as sort of a national opportunity to show off.

10:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh and that last comment was from me.
Jonathan

10:34 PM  

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