Mushi

Natural History, March, 2001 by Erik L. Laurent

From spring to autumn, minmin cicadas are perhaps the most often caught mushi in Japan. Living everywhere--even in the centers of cities, clinging to tree trunks or to walls--they are not difficult prey for tree-climbing children armed with nets and cages. Seemingly of great interest to these children are the cries cicadas make when caught, as well as the tricks used for catching them.

Tombo tori (dragonfly catching) dates back to the first half of the eighteenth century. Dragonflies can be caught by hand or with a net, but the traditional way of catching them is with a tool called a buri in western Japan or a toriko in Tokyo. Similar to a miniature bola, it is made of two small balls, stones, or shells wrapped in red cloth or paper and tied to a silk thread. The toriko is hurled about three feet ahead of the dragonfly, which then flies right into it; the thread becomes tangled in the insect's wings, and the dragonfly falls to the ground. Although popular until the 1960s among boys in the Japanese countryside, catching dragonflies no longer interests most children today. A related activity--catching fireflies--is not as easy as it used to be, because the species is now officially protected and its catchers may be fined.

Spider fighting, too, was very popular until about thirty years ago but is no longer in vogue. In Yokohama in the 1930s, all the twelve-year-old boys used to own spiders. They made the creatures fight by throwing one spider into another's web or by putting two spiders together in a miniature arena fenced in by wood chips. The fights were allowed to continue until one of the arachnids was killed.

Japanese children gain a great deal from their involvement with mushi. Among other things, they develop a feeling for the seasons, a sensibility pervasive in Japanese culture. They learn very early, for instance, that fireflies, rhinoceros beetles, and other creatures appear and then die during a limited period of the year. Mushi give children concrete material for their experimental dialogue with nature and: introduce them to biological diversity. An insect's relatively short life span also teaches them about ontogenetic development and the cycles of life. Feeding and keeping mushi requires personal observation, reflection, and even experimentation. A post office leaflet that advertises the selling of suzumushi crickets tells children: "While observing, let's write a diary with pictures!" Mushi are usually looked after every day by the child, who keeps them until they die.

Traditionally the transmission of knowledge concerning mushi used to occur orally, passed from grandfather to grandchild. Although the traditions surrounding mushi could easily have been forgotten in modern industrialized Japan, insects have instead been turned into media phenomena, with stories featuring slick, mushi-related gear, games, and books. In addition, Japan's contemporary craze for little "virtual" animals that mimic mushi constitutes a technological transformation of real animals into "animaltronics." Tamagochi, for instance, are electronic toys that metamorphose into various shapes and even "die" if they are not cared for. Understanding growth and change is central to the manipulation of tamagochi. For Japanese children, creatures that undergo metamorphosis are a source of fascination that is culturally reinforced. Pokemon toys are based on characters that continually change into other forms, ("Pokemon," of course, is "Japlish" for "pocket monster"--a computer toy, cartoon, television, and movie craze that has jumped cross-culturally to the West.) The very idea of imagining pocket-sized monsters, or bird-egg-sized pets like tamagochi, seems to be connected with the Japanese delight in miniatures, whether bonsai trees, computer chips, or mushi. Some of the body forms of Pokemon are clearly based on those of insects. The most obvious example is Caterpie, which resembles a caterpillar, then changes into Metapod, and finally becomes Butterfree. And much more so than any other group of animals, insects appear as secondary characters or as part of the scenery in the television and comic-book versions of Pokemon stories.