It is so nice to be back home. When I left, it was still the rainy season in Japan. Now we are definitely out of the rainy season–it is very hot and humid, and the cicadas are driving me up the wall. They are always making a racket. Our apartment complex is surrounded by beautiful trees. During the summer this is a curse, as this gives the cicadas ample opportunity to take up residence outside of my window. The sound outside is deafening. To get an idea of what I mean, listen to this and then amplify that in your mind a thousand times.
Cicadas, or “semi” (蝉) in Japanese, come out every summer in Tokyo to bless us with their frightful noise. The Japanese characterize this noise as, “meeeee, meeeee, meeeeeeee.” I personally think that this characterization is quite appropriate, seeing as how I find these insects to be particularly self-centered–making all that racket all day long, every day, never bothering to think about the fact that there are other living creatures who may occasionally want a bit of piece and quiet just so that they can hear themselves think.
Despite my personal disdain for these particular creatures, the Japanese seem to be fascinated with them. In Japan, the cicada is a symbol is of good luck and the exuviae (the shell of the cicada shed after the nymph stage) used to be used as a cure for earache. In addition the cicada has been a source of inspiration to poets. For example:
Fathomless deepens the heat;
The ceaseless shrilling of Sémi mounts,
Like a hissing fire, up to the motionless clouds.
Or
Lo! on the topmost pine, a solitary cicada
Vainly attempts to clasp one last red beam of sun.
Or
Naked as frogs and weak we enter this life of trouble;
Shedding our pomp we pass; so Sémi quit their skins
Cicadas can be found in Japanese carving on such articles as medicine boxes (small carved boxes worn around one’s neck on a string). See reference. Cicadas have also been used on Japanese postage stamps:
Pictures from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~CH2M-NITU/semi.htm.
If that isn’t enough, there is even a restaurant an 8-minute walk from my apartment called Cicada.
You too can have cicadas at home:
http://members.aol.com/davidpetty/mom10.htm
http://inside.msj.edu/academics/faculty/kritskg/cicada/pdfs/foldacic.pdf
http://www.nwf.org/kidzone/kzPage.cfm?siteId=3&departmentId=186&articleId=772
http://hobbies.expertvillage.com/videos/origami-cicada.htm
I folded a couple in honor of the racket outside my windows, hoping that maybe I will start to understand the cicada mania. If you can’t beat ’em, . . . join ’em?
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