I love Chinese culture, well, most of it anyway. Gua zi ya is a condition caused by a cultural habit in China. It is a most strange yet interesting condition caused by a seed! Yes, a seed!
Chinese people (not all of course) love to eat sunflower and watermelon seeds. They buy them by the pound on the street, in the super markets and at the bus stops when there is a seed vendor. They will sit for hours upon hours cracking open the seeds with their front teeth, extracting the "meat" and tossing the shell on the ground. You can always tell where older men sit and chat or play Chinese chess or cards, just look for the pile of seed shells.
After many hours and many years of cracking open the seeds with their front teeth they have a condition I call gua zi ya, seed tooth. Over and over as the tooth is applied to the seed for opening it wears down that part of the tooth. This cultural habit creates a niche in the top and bottom tooth as you can see in the picture posted above.
Why call my blog gua zi ya? Good question, I am really not sure except that is it strange to say the least!
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