This morning waiting for the shuttle bus to work we heard a distant recording playing that surprised my colleague Yuming: he said it was the common “calling” of a very old Chinese traditional work, the knife sharpener, 磨刀人 (Mó dāo rén).
There are still around people doing this job, but not as many as before, Yuming said.
Ancient and traditional job, I have seen that in other Chinese places, I am pretty sure I saw that in Taiwan too.. but also in some Italian villages 🙂 even if I do not remember to have seen them going around on old bikes..
It was a surprise for my Chinese colleagues the use of the recorded voice and the loudspeaker, so modern! Probably a good investment now that his age was making more difficult to shout all the day to attract attention.
The price of the work was around 4RMB per normal size knife.. and it is a quite hard work!
Dreaming of... Asia 
Io ancora lo ricordo quando passava con l’ape!
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Tra i miei ricordi d’infanzia c’è una voce lontana nell’afa di qualche pomeriggio estivo: “Oooooombrellaio…. Ooooooombrellaio…”
Faceva appunto riparazioni di ombrelli e affilamento di coltelli e forbici.
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