INSECTS AND CRITTERS
Summer in Japan is alive with insects, lizards, and other creatures,
all of which stir Caitlin's memories of her childhood
"Trees still dripped with moss, and there was the row of cherries where they'd stalked cicadas with her mother and the grasses beneath where they'd hunted for beetles and hoppers and competed to discover any insect that her mother might not be able to identify, just to be that one special person she'd gloat over for finding something unusual." (PAGE 177)
| Ash opens with young Caitlin and Mie walking along the banks of the Uji-gawa with insect nets in hand and plastic insect cages hung about their necks. From June through October throughout Japan, this is a common sight as children stalk hoppers, dragonflies, butterflies, beetles, and cicadas (which Caitlin refers to by their Japanese name, semi). Children often take them home to keep as pets, feeding them bits of fruit, chunks of cucumber, fish flakes, or live insects. Caitlin's mother, Arlene, had become fascinated with insects during her eighteen months in Japan. In the moist, warm climate of Kyoto, insects grow to sizes unimaginable in Arlene's Pittsburgh, and like many families I have known she kept a variety of specimens in tanks and insect houses in her kitchen. The noise of cicadas in mid-summer can be deafening, and there are many distinctive drones and chirps; they sit immobile high up tree trunks making an incredible racket. On the banks of the Uji-gawa, Mie and Caitlin follow the wriggling path of a Japanese Five-lined Skink, or nihon-tokage. This common species of lizard prefers moist vegetation and has an iridescent metallic blue tail when it is young. Caitlin was familiar with another common lizard, the Japanese Grass Lizard or nihon-kanahebi, which she sometimes used to find on the shrine grounds in Iwakura and which she watched a cat play with outside Naomi's house. Both of these species will drop their tails if threatened or attacked. The song that Caitlin recalls when she is swinging her legs from the veranda with Mrs. Ishii in Uji contains references to some of the many insects and critters that Caitlin and Mie collected: semi, cicada; tonbo, dragonfly; mushi, insect; hebi, snake. Raising silkworms is also popular with children, and Caitlin's schoolmate Mami reminds Caitlin that she'd given her silkworms years before. In the warm months you can often see children pulling mulberry leaves from trees and shrubs in parks and along roadsides to feed their voracious caterpillars before they spin their silk cocoons. |
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