Xiao Pan, a young man living in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province, has just experienced something that makes the skin crawl.

"It was about midnight, I was in sound sleep. Suddenly my ear itched a lot, so I scratched and went back to sleep. The next morning, the itch became unbearable. I hurried to the hospital. And the next thing was that the doctor took out over 20 cockroaches from my ear. I was terrified. It was just horrible!” Xiao Pan said. 

"Such incidents of foreign bodies in the ear are very common," Xiao Pan's doctor said. "The cockroaches have strong survival ability. The temperature and humidity of the ear help the cockroaches live and reproduce. If there are foreign bodies in your ear, go to the doctor as soon as possible, otherwise the result could be a serious infection."

The doctor recalled that not long ago, a grandfather came to him. He said that something seemed to be in his ear, and it felt itchy and painful. After examination, the doctor found a foreign body in his ear. It turned out to be a grain of rice, which had developed yellow germ.

The rice accidentally got into to the grandfather's ear when he worked in the farm. He paid no attention to it. When he came to the doctor, the rice had sprouted.