Beijing, 17 November 2013
When I was young, sticking-out ears were considered ugly and the sign of probable dumbness. This is no doubt why, for instance, Mad Magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Neumann, has ears which stick out
and why two of the the Pieds Nickelés, the grubby lumpenproletariat heroes of a French cartoon series which was still quite popular when I was young, also had had ears which stuck out.
Add to this the general connection between boxers (“thick between the ears”) and prominent cauliflower ears, for instance this boxer from 1914
or this one from Ancient Greece some time in the first centuries BC
and the reader can appreciate that prominent ears were not associated with the finer things of life.
This bad press for protruding ears was bad news for me. As a youngster, my ears had an unfortunate tendency to jut out, which led my mother from time to time to take my chin in her hand, pass an eye over my ears, and talk meditatively about having them pinned back. As you can appreciate, this early threat of ending up under the surgical knife has made me remember these episodes quite keenly and to be generally sensitive to the positioning of people’s ears on their heads. Prominent ears were bad enough for boys. They were even more problematic for girls. There was in my youth a certain tolerance for clumsy, oafish boys – that was par for the course – but girls were meant to be dainty and refined. So sticking-out ears on a girl was a disaster. Luckily my wife’s ears were perfectly aligned to her head, but she remembers there being general talk in her youth about using plasters to “train” protruding ears back against the head (rather as one trains flowers in the garden to grow in a certain direction by tying them to sticks).
All this being said, I never actually met a girl – or boy, for that matter – who had their ears pinned back (or who admitted to it). Nevertheless, it is a fact that as I grew up (and mercifully my ears repositioned themselves correctly against my head) I remember no-one of my generation with protruding ears. Somehow, sticking-out ears disappeared, or at least diminished.
So readers will understand that it was with some astonishment that I and my wife discovered that protruding – sometimes very protruding – ears are quite common in China, especially, so it seems to me, among women. Here is a typical example of what I mean: a young woman photographed at an automobile show, where women are meant to sell cars by being pretty, with obviously protruding ears.
I cannot imagine any automobile house in Europe hiring a woman with such prominent ears to sell its cars.
And here is a picture of an air hostess, a job which in China still connotes prettiness and femininity. I surreptitiously took this photo on a recent flight while the young lady wasn’t looking.
I cannot imagine an air hostess 10-15 years ago in Europe (when good looks were still considered a must for air hostesses) ever having ears sticking out like that.
But perhaps I’m showing a cultural arrogance here, thinking it’s our way or no way. Perhaps the Chinese don’t attribute the same negative connotations to protruding ears that we do in Europe. In a completely unscientific survey, I studied photos of some of the more glamorous Chinese women – actresses, singers and suchlike – to test the following theory: if the Chinese do not think protruding ears are a big deal, then at least some of these women will have ears that stick out. I believe that the following photos prove my theory correct:
The actress Zhang Ziyi
The actress Yang Mi
The actress Lin Chiling
Their ears don’t stick out as much as some women’s ears we’ve seen here, but in my non-professional opinion they stick out more than they would on equivalent European (and American) glamorous women.
PS: After I published this post, a reader kindly sent me a series of links to videos and a photo, which show Asian girls with very prominent ears. The links are in the comment below. From these, I feel that protruding ears are an issue not just with Chinese girls but with East/South-East Asian girls in general. Is there a genetic component to all this, I wonder?
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Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Alfred_E._Neumann.jpg/460px-Alfred_E._Neumann.jpg [in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman%5D
Pieds Nickelés: http://www.bdoubliees.com/trio/sfig1/pn3.jpg [in http://www.bdoubliees.com/trio/series5/piedsnickeles.htm%5D
Boxer Fred Welsh 1914: http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/17114u.preview.jpg [in http://www.shorpy.com/node/2585%5D
Ancient Greek boxer: http://cultureweekend.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DSC_0331-540×358.jpg [in http://cultureweekend.com/ciao-bella-italy-nyc/%5D 350 BC-50 BC
Chinese ears: http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/04/2012-Beijing-Auto-Show-Ears.jpg [in http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/04/girls-of-the-2012-beijing-auto-show-im-all-ears/%5D
Air hostess: my photo
Actress Zhang Ziyi: http://images6.alphacoders.com/315/315260.jpg [in http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=315260%5D
Actress Yang Mi: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o0WNzbJ9JWA/T7W-6rzqm5I/AAAAAAAAHkE/9MmBmWdgZck/s1600/1%2BYang%2BMi%2BRust%2Band%2BBone%2BCannes%2B001.jpg [in http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/2012/05/yang-mi-and-hao-lei-cannes-red-carpet.html%5D
Actress Lin Chiling: http://chinesemov.com/images/actors2/Lin-Chi-Ling-2.jpg [in http://chinesemov.com/actors/Lin%20Chi-Ling.html%5D
The ears you show don’t stick out, except for the first photo of the car selling girl. Look here http://www.oocities.org/naoki_kotoko/ckotoko.htm and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RLWQZfRfA and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13W4ov36enQ and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwGdD7GFAJc and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwcfjr4GYGU
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Thanks so much! I was indeed having trouble finding photos of Chinese girls with ears which stick out. Thanks for giving me – and other readers – these links.
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Most of the links I sent you are about Japanese, Korean and Indonesian girls.
Here’s some more, Indonesian actress Happy Salma who has only one protruding ear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RLWQZfRfA
Indonesian singer Nina Tamam : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbuoYbI7Ujo
Indonesian singer Nafa and others: see photos
In the USA many people are also born with protruding ears, but nowadays they all run to a plastic surgeon, while Asians proudly show their ears.
Cheers,
Thierry
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Finally someone who won’t judge my playlists on YouTube.
My Chinese girlfriend said that many actually do get surgery on their ears to make it flat. Those actors actually had surgery but their ears were so crazy pointy that the surgery wasn’t enough to hide it.
She has prominent ears too and had all her friends remove their hair or article of clothing to show me their ears. And many of them got surgery to make it flat but they were still prominent after the surgery.
Many Chinese do not talk about it due to face. Covid ring a bell?
This play list is about the true face of middle earth and shows a little boy who got zero ear surgery and much more. Tolkien was talking about our races of middle earth/earth in the Middle Ages.
The elves=Asians/Native American
The Dwarves=middle easterners
The Humans=the Europeans/Russians
The Haradrim=the Africans
The Eagles=the American/eagle mythology fusion.
Mordor=Notzi Germany/European monster mythology fusion
Isengard and the Uruk-hai=Japans samurai/Oni fusion
The Hobbit=Tolkien himself who was there and back again.
Be sure to read the title and descriptions before watching the videos to understand what they are pointing out.
My elven playlist:
My dwarven playlist:
My human playlist:
My haradrim playlist:
The Uruk-Hai:
Mordor:
The Eagles:
The Hobbit:
Ps. I am a half elf lol I don’t age, everyone’s left me behind.
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For those who liked my comment on the truth of the real face of the lord of the rings, the non white washed version that Tolkien was actually talking about
I posted a link on my playlist about elves in the description. It shows how all Chinese have prominent ears.
Note that many of those woman in the pictures actually did get plastic surgery. Some ears are so extremely prominent that the surgery can’t completely fix it.
In my playlist about the dwarves, because middle easterners don’t have such strong face hiding like Asia, I was able to find many videos talking about their really big noses and the common place nose surgery’s that they get. On top of how all the old middle eastern religions frowned at cutting hair and all grow long beards.
In ancient Asia, major pointy ears was a sign of good luck.
In the Middle East, a big full beard was a sign of holiness.
Now this is just facial features. But ancient body structures and even today were all identical to Tolkien’s descriptions. But again that just body.
look at their ancient style, culture, mythology, everything is identical to what Tolkien describes in his books and it’s well known that Asian don’t raisin… meaning middle easterners and Asians age way better, Asians the best. I have videos on that as well. In Asian mythology they have what’s called the path to immortality that all mortals can achieve.
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