BUGS!

In Scotland, we are used to the influx of insects that the summer brings, wasps, bees, flies, midges, butterflies, horseflies and all the rest, either benign or not so pleasant. We know what to expect and we prepare for it as best we can. We know that midges don’t usually come out in direct sunlight and that if we use a good repellant, we will probably only suffer minor blood-loss. We are also aware that wasps are mostly harmless during the early part of the summer and only become aggressive later in the season, when they stop feeding on other insects and become more interested in sweet things such as ripening fruit or that ice-cream that you are trying to eat. Here in Japan they also have most of the insects that we know. There are bees from tiny, ant-size mini bees to things that dwarf our bumblebees, there are wasps of every stripe, the most dangerous being the ‘Suzumebachi’, or ‘sparrow bee’, so called because that’s the size it attains! Very dangerous, a few stings from them and you can die.

Cockroaches are another common feature in Japan, especially in older houses. I haven’t seen a single one in our house, which is now three years old. I've seen two in two days in Reiko’s parent's house in Kyoto and they were both about two inches long, YUCK! One of my major pet hates in Japan is cockroaches, or ‘Gokiburi’, as they are called here. They look revolting, they spread disease and they cause asthma. Very unhygienic and unpleasant creatures. There are a lot of products to control them and they can be removed from your view quite easily. My other bugbear, if you’ll pardon the pun, is the mosquitoes, I can’t stand them, but they love me. Thankfully, they love Reiko even more and she generally gets over a bite in about a day or so, whereas I suffer for a week or two. Thank god for winter when they die off.

Summer and autumn wouldn't be the same in Japan without the churring sound of the cicadas, or ‘Semi’ in Japanese. These huge, cumbersome, clumsy bugs must be among the noisiest insects in the world. When they really get going in the garden here, it can actually hurt your ears and the resonance is such that it sounds as if they are right beside you, when in fact they are a number of metres away. They aren't harmful in any way, and form a rather pleasant backdrop to summer landscapes. Apparently, the Chinese regard them highly as a delicacy, but they are such physically repulsive creatures, that you won't catch me trying fried cicada anytime soon. Of course there are beautiful insects here too. There is a flowering shrub in the garden that attracts a lot of butterflies. Even in this suburb of Kyoto, the variety of butterflies that come to feed on the nectar is quite amazing, about what we would expect in a country garden I suppose. One of the butterflies is a big black beastie with red spots on its swallowtail wings. It must have a wingspan of at least 5 inches and looks bigger than most bats that I have seen around here.

Sorry I haven’t updated recently, but what with the end-of-term and traveling to Kyoto, I’ve had rather a busy time of it. I’ll try and write more often from now on.