One of the quintessential Japanese summer sounds is the cicada chorus coming from the greenery of the local park on a hot, humid day. Ever wondered what the creatures that make that min min sound look like? I got close enough to a cicada (semi 蝉) to find out that they’re not exactly tiny. Nor are they the most beautiful of creatures to admire.
The cicadas start off in life as a pupae looking thing, from which they emerge, leaving their old skins behind to wither where they crawled out of them. I remember playing with the discarded cicada cases as a kid and using them to scare the girls. I wonder if Japanese boys do that too… (Maybe they’re too busy raising their kabuto-mushi – helmet beetles – which remain a very popular summer-time activity for children.)
To my ears, the sound Japanese cicadas make is a little less of the screech screech that I’m used to back in Australia, and a bit more of a softer jii jii or min min. But when there’s a chorus of them, they can still make a real din. Here’s a (low quality) recording of the semi in Hibiya Park at lunchtime today. The cicadas in Japan flit around as well – I was dive-bombed by a few when eating my bento on the park bench.
I love summer but I hate them…I’m so glad they’re dropping like flies now. (-; But it’s nothing personal, I hate almost all flying seemingly powerful insects.
btw good post (-;