I hate summer in Japan.
Its supposed to be a wonderful season. Festivals, fireworks, the beach, girls in bikinis (oh my GOD, girls in bikinis...), and yes, all that stuff is nice. But it doesn't make up for all the other stuff during summer that's just absolutely shitty. The weather is of course a factor. I'm from California, and I even spent a few years living in the Mojave Desert (with a father who didn't believe in air conditioning...try to wrap your heads around that one...), so I'm no stranger to hot weather. Japan, especially Kyoto where I live, is just humid and muggy, and that's what makes it so miserable. Go outside past the confines of your air conditioner, and you will sweat buckets simply for existing.
But the heat is one thing. I could deal with the heat. What I cannot deal with...are the bugs.
In summer, every species of creepy crawly nasty motherfucker insect comes out of the woodwork. and plagues this tiny little island country with their pestilence. It sucks especially for me, because I don't just get bitten by mosquitoes, I get fucking harvested by them. I never have just one bug bite, no. Just the other day I had 7...on one arm. My blood must be absolutely delicious. Bugs must be getting on the bug network about this or something...
Bug 1: Hey man, you gotta check this out. I've struck GOLD.
Bug 2: Eh? What's up?
Bug 1: This is, like, the Grey Poupon of blood right here. This shit is scrumptious. I'm not even hungry anymore and I'm already on my third helping!
Bug 2: F'real? Allright, hold up, I'll be right there!
An especially prevalent bug problem are cicadas. In the mornings especially, these things are louder than two girls cat-fighting over a loud speaker. They also tend to die and leave their festering corpses in the street. These bugs are HUGE (bug standard) and especially disgusting. I don't care that they're dead, its nasty and I hate it.
Sometimes, ones that are still alive can jump out at you too.
I was on the train heading somewhere, and as the train pulled into a station, stopped, and opened its doors, suddenly I heard the loud buzzing of the cicada. This time, it was 3x louder/more powerful than I'd ever heard it. What, had my train accidentally pulled into the Cicada Collective or something? Was there a Cicada Karaoke competition going on nearby? I look around and soon discovered why - just like any ordinary passenger, the cicada had boarded the train, and was now on the floor...directly next to me.
Other Japanese people sitting on the train also noticed our new passenger...but instead of getting up and running the fuck away as I thought they would...they just...sat there. I have to say that this was the absolute last reaction I would have expected. Especially remembering back to Ms. Butterfly's reaction to a harmless little butterfly. Have you ever seen a Japanese girl go apeshit as an insect buzzes near her general vicinity? It truly is a thing of wonder to behold, and I suggest you all find a way to make this event happen so you can watch it at least once in your life.
I too tried to blow off the cicada. After all, I'm a big, black, scary gaijin. I can't be running scared of no bugs. I tried to just ignore its presence...but I couldn't. Who knows what this little terrorist was planning? Perhaps he was going to jump up on me when I let my guard down. I often sleep on the trains...what if I fell asleep and my mouth was hanging open, and this flagrant little bastard flew right up into my open mouth? That makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. I may skip dinner tonight.
So...I got up and changed train cars. And I could feel the watchful Japanese eyes on me as I did it. "Big black scary man is afraid of a little bug? FOR SHAME."
..........FUCK YEAH I'm bothered by that nasty little hell spawn, why aren't you? So butterflies then are nasty little creatures of evil but cicadas are a-ok? Who in the name of Foghorn Leghorn decided this nonsense?!
Now, I can anticipate in the comments many of you, feeling your e-penis throbbing to massive new lengths thanks to the viagra that is internet anonymity, will be saying something like "Wow Az, I didn't know you were such a baby. It's just a bug, right? Grow up and be a man." To that, I can only say this. You know the myth of how elephants are afraid of mice? Doesn't really make sense, does it? I mean, an elephant is like a bajillion times bigger than the itty bitty little mouse. All the elephant needs to do is raise a foot and stomp the mouse into oblivion. But for however much an elephant is terrified of mice (if the myth is true), it can and will not hesitate to stomp the shit out of a human. So, don't tempt the elephant.
I fucking hate bugs. I always have and I always will. Everyone has their Achilles Heel, this is mine.
***
It occurred to me that little boys, for some odd reason, have a fascination with bugs. I wasn't so twisted - I hated them from the start. I liked cars, jet planes, robots, robots that could transform into cars and jet planes, and women (I got started early on that). Fuck bugs.
This concerns me, because I will be having kids someday in the near future (if my wife had her way; yesterday), and if I have boys and somehow fail in their upbringing, there is a chance that little Az Junior will come home with some sort of bug discovery he's made...with the specimen alive or even dead.
If this ever happened...the kid would be grounded so hard, by the time he saw sunlight again North and South Korea would be a unified country. The DMZ would have been turned into a McDonalds FunHouse.
Drugs, sex, stealing things, fist fights, whatever, I'll deal with it. Bring home a bug? Nuh-uh, no way, dame, niet, es muy bad, no. My boy would learn then and there that there are several things in this world that one simply cannot do...walk into Mordor, tempt the Dark Side, and bring insects into my life. Aside from being grounded until the world sees peace, I'd probably lock myself up in a room to contemplate my complete and utter failure as a parent.
Now, if I have daughters, girls usually tend to be grossed out by bugs so this isn't a problem. I think though, when one is dealing with daughters, the level of potential parental failure gets kicked up a few notches. Like, if boys are playing with firecrackers, girls are playing with nuclear missiles. As far as Ultimate Parental Failure as far as daughters are concerned goes, I think the scale goes something like this -
-- She becomes a slut.
-- She becomes a bitch.
-- She becomes a bitchy slut.
-- She has that annoying loud laugh where she has to gasp for breath every 2 seconds.
-- She becomes a gold digger.
-- She becomes a crack whore.
-- She becomes an actual whore.
-- She starts to mimic/idolize the behaviors of Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, or Amy Winehouse, except without the money.
-- She becomes a street-walker prostitute.
-- She does a few amateur porns.
-- She becomes a porn star.
-- She becomes a major porn star.
-- She does porn that includes fucked up shit, like scat or bukkake.
-- You have two daughters/twins, both of whom do porn.
-- Both girls do fucked up porn.
-- Your daughters/twins do lesbian sister/twin incest porn together.
If there is a failure harder than that...I just can't think of it.
Now, this is why only fools are (internet) heroes - because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice. I can already anticipate someone asking me - "Az, which would be worse? Your two daughters doing incest porn together, or your son bringing home a half-dead cicada?" ...Don't make me choose between such horrible options, you sick fuck. On one hand, you have the complete and utter fail of not only having one of your daughters become a porn star...but both of them...and not only do you have two daughters in the business, they partake in one of the unholiest of all taboos...but then you also have those nasty, disgusting, awful, menacing cicadas. Don't make me think about which hell I would prefer, for they are both full of misery and torment.
Yes, that is how much I hate bugs. I hate bugs and I will make no apologies for it. If you asked me to take on a wild bear I could do it with a little mental prep and some light armor, but if you ask me to stomp on a spider, I'm coming back with a huge can of Raid and I'm going biological warfare on his ass. And when itsy bitsy spider chokes on the nerve gas I'm going to scoop him up with the most powerful vacuum cleaner I can find from maximum distance away, and then take the waste bag to the nearest incinerator and fry that sumbitch into oblivion. And then go home and shower 3 or 4 times.
Man, I'll be glad when it's winter and all these creepy-crawlies are finally dead.
You forgot about the species of bug- rhino beetle or whatever it's called (I forget the Japanese name) that kids keep as pets. They sell them at my local produce store. NEXT TO THE PINEAPPLES! IN FRUIT CONTAINERS!
And then there's the mukade...
No, no, as a guy in rural southern Japan I know what you mean about bugs. The cockroaches here- oh my god. But the spiders are pretty cool. One spider at my place caught a cicada, that was pertty impressive. Those things scream when they're caught though. Pretty effin scary.
Yeah when I went to Italy last summer they had those cicadas, they were extremely loud and annoying. Though I didn't actually see one. They also had these 5 inch bugs! AND THEY FLEW. I ran so fast. I'll never stay in rural areas of Italy ever again.
As for heat, I heard in Asia it's mostly muggy but I've been to Michigan and Indiana so I can handle it. Don't worry, since Japan has all it's seasons it's almost fall for you. Lucky.
More summer in California until December, if I'm lucky it may go down a few degrees.
Mythbusters tested the elephant-mice myth and found out that although it isn't the stampede kind of scared, elephants really don't like mice and will avoid them.
according to Wiki:
The adult insect, sometimes called an imago, is usually 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 inches) long, although some tropical species can reach 15 cm (6").
I hate to say it ... most bugs don't die during the winter, the just hibernate. :(
Eggads, I need a shower now ...
Uhhh... You OK, Az?
What if your incest daughters did porn where cicadas ran around on top of their nipples and landing strip? And your wife walked in with you pants to your ankles.
:0
anything worse than a giant monster bug, is a giant monster bug that THROWS ITSELF AT YOU... and I thought my local bugs where annoying! (PS: i live in Brazil) (PS2: Hi mom!)
I bet you love Mushiking Az.
I fucking hate bugs. I'm a total pussy when it comes to insects and arachnids.
If I hear that dreadful buzzing of a yellowjacket flying around my window, I leave the room and tell the first person I find that there's a wasp in my room and they should kill it and not to look at my computer monitor because it has gay porn on it.
Back a couple of months ago, I'd have to deal with at least one, sometimes two crane flies (huge-ass mosquito lookalikes) flying around my room every night. They suck at flying and are pretty easy to kill, but I hesitate at the thought of being close to one of the wretched things.
But I still get scared of any insect that CAN'T bite/sting me. A fairly big moth was able to enter my room one night this summer, and it scared the fuck out of me. I ended up killing it by spraying it with Lysol. Fuck its cleaning power, it's a multi-purpse spray, good for killing these 6-8 legged fuckers (it might piss them off initially, but if you douse it in it I'm sure they'll die).
I think my fear stems from the fact that I got bitten in my sleep by something a few years back, and I was able to feel it in my sleep. Woke up seeing two fang marks on my arm. D:
Az, you're out of luck. I hate, loath, despise, and detest bugs.
I have a 5 year-old son and live in Japan. And whether I like it or not (Dammit!!) every summer our genkan resonates with the horrible rustle of stag beetles and elephant beetles that the kid's grandparents give to him - and he ALWAYS ASKS FOR MORE!!!
It gets worse - he's not alone. The same is true of the genkans of every single male classmate of his.
Face it Az, you're out of luck.
Or your daughter can turn out weird like her... =)
http://otakuinternational.com/2008/08/shokotans-unique-cosplay/
I feel your pain!
"Japan, especially Kyoto where I live, is just humid and muggy, and that's what makes it so miserable."
No lie -- I was there during the dead of summer, and here's the AAR:
http://www.bidalaka.com/picofarad/pf11/disney.html .
Oh, By The Way: I have no memory whatever of the first day of that trip. (The thunderstorm, OTOH....)
"An especially prevalent bug problem are cicadas."
Hell, you don't even have to leave the US to put up with them -- I used to have to visit Texas in summer on a regular basis, and the cicadas there were driving me... well... buggy.
"If there is a failure harder than that...I just can't think of it."
Eight daughters performing an eight-way around-the-world in an open-trench toilet full of cockroaches?
"I hate bugs and I will make no apologies for it."
So I guess you had to put up with a lot of Other Kids Ramming Bugs Into Your Face So They Can Watch You Have A Panic Attack?
Yeah, I know the feeling. Tho' my problem is a bit bigger than an insect -- about 20' long, weighing four tons, with lots of teeth and a very nasty disposition. (And as I recall, the Japanese don't much like those, either....)
Mythbusters covered the elephant and mouse thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXiMs65ZAeU
Whether or not they're actually afraid of them is debatable. The elephants could simply be trying not to hurt such a small creature.
Aaand of course, Snopes also has something to say about that:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/elephant.asp
As for Cicadas, I live in New Jersey. We have them hear, but we only hear them every couple of years. I live in the city so they're rarer, but even out in the sticks they're not as prevalent as I've heard they are in Japan.
I think becoming a prostitute is much worse than becoming a porn star. As a porn star you can get famous and make a million dollars. As a prostitute you hardly make any money and only get famous if they put your mugshot online or you f&ck Hugh Grant.
I think becoming a prostitute is much worse than becoming a porn star. As a porn star you can get famous and make a million dollars. As a prostitute you hardly make any money and only get famous if they put your mugshot online or you f&ck Hugh Grant.
What's worse is when the cicadas drop out of trees RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU on their backs and just make that screeching noise on the ground as they struggle in vain. Thank God I went to Japan in late summer and left mid-winter.
Lol. Funny as always and the Ms. Butterfly comment made me feel nostalgic and prompted me to go read all your earlier editorials...again. Think about it, today you would actually prefer dealing with those nasty school boys and girls rather than those cicadas.
M
Hmm. Back in 2004 around my hometown in DC the cicadas only come out every 17 years. (approximately according to the news reports then)
I remember because I was 17 at the time. Apparently these cicadas only come out after maturing 17 years underground to mate lay their eggs and die. The new generation is then to only come back after 17 years of maturation underground to complete the cycle.
These cicadas were EVERYWHERE, I mean there was almost no place to go where you wouldn't see entire swarms of them. Especially where there were grassy areas.
Lol, me and a friend even played a prank on a bug-phobic friend, planting a cicada on his back and having it crawl up his back until 30 minutes later it finally crept upon his neck. I've never seen a fully grown guy scream the way he did. Hilarious; We couldn't stop laughing if we wanted to for at least 20 minutes.
I hate to brings this to you, Az... But most little girls I know or knew do/did like bugs, as well. I've never considered it a boy thing. So I don't think you're safe for that either...
Take it as a warning, I guess. Don't let your guard down bug-wise because you have a girl.
Actually, Mythbusters tackled the elephant/mice myth.
They hid a fake mouse under a fake rock and somehow made the fake rock tip over releasing the mouse-like robotic creature. It may've even been a dead mouse. You know how Mythbusters is.
Anyways, the Elephants shied away from it. At first, they thought it was the moving rock. Then, they just hid it under a bush.
The elephant wasn't running away in terror. However, they did stop, and turn around/went around the mouse in a wide circle.
So, the analogy still stands.
Jacqueline is right my far flung friend. They do not die, much like Chuck Norris, they wait.
They wait four you. They wait while your world freezes, huddled in their little holes warm and cozy. It's a vacation really.
And when the sun shines fully on Japan once more, once they have finished their spring induced orgies, they will come for you. They will look at you and see that this large mother trucker is full of delicious.
This post... Really doesn't fit the tone of your normal work. It sounds out of place, like someone younger and angrier than you hijacked your blog. It's kinda weird.
Personally, I like (some) bugs, as long as they're not *stinging* bugs, but I'm not going to try and convince you they're all great wonderful creatures. If you don't like 'em, you don't like 'em. *Shrug*
Hi Az,
Long time listener first time caller.
Just arrived in a small city in Saitama last month. I must say that the Cicadas haven't quite dropped dead yet but yes, the giant mutant bugs that live all over Japan give my San Diego-born soul a hell of a shiver.
Also, HEY EVER HEARD OF AIRI AND MEIRI? Man, parental failure sure can be adorable.
Bugs don't freak me out but you do get a healthy respect for certain spiders you come across! As for cicadas, the only thing against them is that noise... I've been to many parts of the US and a couple of times the sound has been absolutely deafening in the morning such is the concentration of the little buggers around where I was staying. Can I see them though hiding away, making that racket? Of bloody well course not! :p
I totally get the bug fears. I cannot fucking stand insects. Well, except spiders. Spiders don't bother me. They don't move the same way as other bugs(scarily) or jump on you.
Even the cicadas we get here in Ohio are bad enough, but I hear they're way bigger in Japan. And you guys have those massive, crazy-pissed-off hornets that follow/sting you for like half a mile.
I want to go to Japan, but this post has struck fear in my heart. Fuck.
I know exactly how you feel. I hate bugs with a similar passion. While in Japan, my girlfriend told her host sister that I hate bugs. This cute little Japanese girl comes up to me, tells me to hold my hand out. Stupidly, I do. She then drops a MASSIVE, DISGUSTING, BUG, into my hand.
I hate children.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who hates insects with a passion. Here in Sweden we have no cicadas though, but instead we got lots and lots of wasps, swarming around bus stops and all manner of public places where there is a garbage can nearby, just waiting to mercilessly stab innocent bystanders with their stingers.
Az, you forgot if your daughter started doing japanese insect porn.
WARNING: NSFW, MAY LEAVE MIND SCARS
literateperversions.com/?p=72
THANK-YOU AZ!!! FINALLY SOMEONE WHO AGREES WITH ME!!! I always talk about how much I hate the cicadas here in Japan but all my ALT friends talk about how nice they sound...like they're trying to be all Japanese or something. I HATE them. They fly, they're HUGE, they buzz on the floor while they're dying, they sound like they're in my ears while I'm jogging..yeah...I really fucking hate them.
I was at my grandmother's house a few weeks ago visiting, and one night, baby centipedes and this BIG FAT SPIDER popped out of nowhere...my relatives told me not to kill the spider, because it ate bugs. Bastards.
It did, therefore, give me great joy when my auntie who was sleeping on futon with us suddenly jumped up in the middle of the night. Probably the spider poked her.
"Now, I can anticipate in the comments many of you, feeling your e-penis throbbing to massive new lengths thanks to the viagra that is internet anonymity . . ."
Effing BRILLIANT!
@Hilary: Michigan and Indiana? Try living in the deep South. Then you can talk to me about heat and humidity.
Az, I hate cicadas too, in fact, they're buzzing outside my window right now. Ugh.
I feel for you when it comes to mosquitoes. After one fun night in Thailand I had 20 bites on one foot, and another 20 on the other. They find me delicious.
Now because mosquitoes love me so much, I actually like spiders, since they can catch and eat them. When I see a spider I don't kill but instead give it words of encouragement to kill as many mosquitoes as possible.
Maybe you should be more worried about your future daughters, Az. I mean, I was the only middle schooler, male or female, who was willing to handle the hissing cockroaches at the zoo, and last time I checked, I was a girl.
(Of course, even I didn't like cicadas as a kid. Partially because one of them landed on my neck when I was five during one of those crazy swarms.)
I'm brazilian too! And I hate the damn bugs too: cicadas, roaches, flies. spiders... They are proof that Hell exists and is throwing shit at us - especially in tropical countries where it's hot and damp most of the time.
So, you are not alone in your hatred of bugs, Az: around the world we suffer too.
Wow Az, I didn't know you were such a baby!!!!!! Well to be honest I hate bugs too... specially thos who fly an has stings... like bees... I hate bees with all my mitochondria... once I got stung by five of those african beetches, thank God I wasn't allergic...
Try Costa Rica, where I saw a friend accidentally step on a 4-inch long (the body, not including the wings) moth, stand on it for a few seconds, then walk away, and the damned moth was still alive. Broken, but alive. I also saw another moth on the ceiling of an open-air restaurant that was at least a foot across in wingspan.
Hahaha, I was in Fukuoka last summer so I can relate.
However, growing up in Korea (yes, I'm part of the race that gave Az access to Transformers), has allowed me to develop an ability to tune out cicadas. For example, I was in Korea with a caucasian buddy of mine a month ago or so, and he kept complaining about the noise... of the countryside. I thought he was on crack, but in hindsight, he was hearing cicadas roaring away while I just considered the noise of the cicadas as "normal." The best way to put it is that I EXPECT the noise to be there in the summer, as I'd expect there to be trees in the mountain, water in the sea, and so on. To put it simply, my subconsciousness hears it, but my brain doesn't register it as a separate noise.
Anyway, before I get ahead of myself, your post brought back some memories. :]
Oh Christ. When I see a bug as far as ten feet from me, I run like a crazed lunatic escaping from an asylum.
Speaking of cicadas in Japan, have you come across anyone doing cicada cosplay?
I kid you not: http://www.pinktentacle.com/2008/08/cicada-shell-cosplay/
You think a few cicadas are scary imagine billions. We just had our crop of 17 year cicadas here in Chicago. Once every 17 years a swarm of cicadas shows up and for the next few weeks there are cicadas everywhere and on everything. Imagine standing in a field with a carpet of living cicadas surrounding you on every side.
When I was 3 or 4, and we lived in Florida, I remember waking up and seeing a Palmetto Bug on the ceiling (picture a giant green flying roach thing - yikes!). I went to yell, and the thing flew right into my mouth. I've been traumatized about giant flying insects ever since.
FF 5 or 6 years to NY, where my teenage neighbor walks up to me, opens his mouth, and out flies the cicada he had been keeping in there (WTF?) causing me to scream like a girl and run like hell.
I. Hate. Giant. Flying. Bugs.
The insect related purchase I ever made was something that looks like a badminton racket with electrified strings. You just mash the power button, and stick the strings on top of whatever bug you want to die. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing spiders go "pop" from two feet away without any lingering smell or mess.
I doubt it would work on cicadas though. On larger bugs it acts more like a stun gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cicada_molting_animated-2.gif. that's nasty. Say that in Cleveland's voice. Your not the only one who hates those little shits.
Ha ha ha ha ha
Pure genius.
"As for heat, I heard in Asia it's mostly muggy but I've been to Michigan and Indiana so I can handle it."
Maybe my memories are skewed, but I have spent time in Michigan in the middle of summer. It isn't as bad as you make it out to be. I came home to Southern Illinois, walked out my door to go to the post office, and almost suffocated.
Az: Be glad you don't live in Illinois. Cicadas are as normal as...well, normal junk. I have literally grown up with them every summer, it doesn't even bother me anymore. In fact, the sound is relaxing to me now.
So to give the Japanese some credit for ignoring the cicadas, you are probably one of the only people who even pay attention to them.
Man i agree i hate insects. Those little things creep me out son.
Be happy you haven't seen these suckers yet.
http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2007/10/23/the-year-of-ninja-spiders/
http://www.fazed.org/blog/view/1/clock-spider/
And I thought bug collecting was a long-time tradition of Japan? :D
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1070/543215375_9a16f8df57.jpg?v=0
Fear! FEAR!!!!!!!!
MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!