The Japanese sure are a funny lot:
Actually I can kind of see the appeal. I guess that makes me a bit odd too.They have sprung up across the nation in entertainment districts. And the service they tout--having one's ears cleaned while resting one's head on a woman's lap--might seem to suggest other favors awaiting those willing to pay. But operators of so-called ear-cleaning salons insist they are not fuzoku, or sex-related businesses, despite the intimate setting they provide customers... this reporter--a 35-year-old married man--[decided] to try to find out what kind of magical soothing effect the "therapy" entails. No sooner had I made myself at home in the tiny cubicle at the Sakura salon in Nagoya's Sakae district, about the size of a three-tatami-mat room, the female employee dressed in a dark blue yukata whispered softly as she applied the ear cleaner to my earlobe. "You must be tired, your work being so unpredictable, no?" the woman, 28, said, as my other ear rested comfortably in the soft warmth of the woman's lap... "The customers are not coming to seek expert ear cleaning services, but seeking some form of mental satisfaction," the operator said.
