In China, barbers are still practising ‘eyeball shaving’ and it’s every bit as bad as it sounds

THERE’S a ritual in China where a barber scrapes your eyeball with a razor blade. It is, by far, one of the worst things we’ve ever seen. Warning: Graphic.

WARNING: Graphic

It’s a well-known fact that people can be sensitive about their eyes. In particular, about anything touching their eyes.

The concept of contact lenses is incredibly abhorrent to some people (“I AM NOT TOUCHING MY EYEBALL, NO WAY BRO”) and getting something stuck in their eye and having to have it removed my a doctor sends others into bouts of revulsion.

So how about having someone scrape your eyeball with a razor blade?

It sounds like something out of a Saw film, but in fact it’s an ancient “art” in China.

As the Huffington Post reports, 62-year-old Xiong Gaowu from Chengdu is one of the few barbers who still practices “eyeball shaving”. Presumably because liability insurance for that business is skyyyyy high.

How these women are watching without running away screaming is anyone's guess. Picture: RUPTLY

The procedure involves him holding the customer’s (victim’s?) eyelids open while scraping dirt and residue directly off the helpless eyeball.

He’s been conducting the treatment for over 40 years and told ShanghaiList.com he’s never injured anyone.

He's realllly got that blade up in there, hasn't he? Picture: RUPTLY

Can you imagine being in the barber shop the day he asked if he could practice this cool new technique he learned on you?

The technique was reportedly used early in the 20th century to treat trachoma, a bacterial condition that is the most common infection cause of blindness in the world.

The blading and scraping *faints* removed the ulcers and scar tissues under the patients’ eyelids and helps treat the infection.

Even if you're having a pretty bad day, it cannot be worse than this bloke's. Picture: RUPTLY

But Qu Chao, deputy director of the ophthalmology department in the Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, tells the South China Morning Post that the practice has been largely abandoned as it is potentially dangerous and has been phased out for more modern techniques and antibiotics.

This picture is borderline too much, isn't it? Picture: RUPTLY

Still, some people like the hard-as-nails chap in the Ruptly video above still prefer to undergo the traditional method.

“In the beginning, my eye was uncomfortable,” the man says in the video above.

“And now it has been washed, it will be calmer.”

Good for you, pal. Your eyeball will be calmer, but anyone reading this story will never be the same again.

You cannot deny that his eyes look a little weepy. Also, the barber looks suitably deranged.

* Huffington Post used the pun “cutting edge procedure” in their story which was very well played and we wish we’d got there first.