Now that the peak of summer has passed, most of us are probably thankful that the heat is going to dissipate and we can live our lives free from ever-present pools of sweat.
For me, the end of summer brings an added joy — all those menacing-looking insects that pop up across Japan start to collectively pack their bags and bugger off for another year. Bliss.
I know creepy-crawlies aren’t exclusive to Japan, but as a Brit, pretty much all I ever had to deal with growing up were ladybugs and spiders — and unfortunately for me, I have arachnophobia. I’ve had it since I was about 8, coinciding roughly with the time I watched the “horror comedy” film “Arachnophobia” for the first and only time. Living in the countryside, spiders weren’t exactly uncommon, and my parents’ house certainly seemed to get its fair share of the big, black-bodied variety. When I go home for a visit, I still hesitate to go into the loft or the garden shed.
Here in Japan, my interactions with spiders are generally kept to a comfortable minimum. In Tokyo, it seems they can’t be bothered coming up to the ninth floor where I am.
It’s a different matter when I go to my wife’s family home in rural Toyama Prefecture, where they get orb-weaver spiders with black and yellow legs and strange zipper webs. It’s always a case of keeping my eyes peeled and making sure I don’t accidentally walk through a web when I visit.
However, I do need to remind myself sometimes that it’s wise to keep my end-of-summer, spider-exodus joy at bay for a while, as some of them will hang around until November, and there are plenty more unwelcome critters to cause alarm in the meantime.
I’m especially not a fan of cockroaches, those perennial summer squatters. We have cockroaches in the U.K., sure, but they’re rarely seen. And when they are, you know you’re somewhere dirty that the health authorities should probably be informed about.
In Japan, cockroaches will travel anywhere. The height of the building is no barrier, and no matter how clean and tidy you are, there will come a day when a cockroach pays you a visit or gets too close for comfort.
Just like festivals, shaved ice and cicadas, cockroaches are an undeniable and unfortunately unavoidable part of a Japanese summer.
This season brought a few to my balcony and completely ruined the joy I was getting from growing flowers out there. My impatiens and morning glories lost their luster in my eyes as soon as the cockroach party got started.
There’s no shortage of products you can buy to kill or deter the little scavengers from coming near. Drug stores, supermarkets and convenience stores all sell a variety of sprays, traps and whatnot, but a man’s home is his castle, as they say, and once you’ve been invaded by a cockroach or two, flicking on the lights in a darkened room in the dog days of summer hardly ever comes without a tinge of dread.
Friends and family back home in the U.K. recoil in horror when I tell them about the creatures that I’ve seen in Japan. The recoil is stronger when I bring up the fearsome mukade.
This summer, I was fortunate: I only encountered one of the large centipedes with red and yellow markings. It was about 9 or 10 centimeters long and thrashing about in the middle of the road — temperamental, it seemed, even by mukade standards.
So good riddance to all those unwelcome house guests. But on the other hand, there are some more harmless and docile creatures that will fade away with the closing weeks of a Japanese summer.
The lizards that I see now and then are a favorite of mine — they’re eye-catching, non-threatening and actually almost cute with streaks of electric blue on their tails. I have a photo of a pale green moth on a wall that was roughly the same size as my outstretched hand and really rather magnificent. And of course, having children in Japan, I have been made to hold numerous stag and rhinoceros beetles as well as grasshoppers and the like — all happily harmless.
As a father in my late 30s, I do feel sometimes that I should probably be able to deal with all these creatures better, but spiders and cockroaches elicit a negative gut reaction from me. And with mukade and other creatures that can cause actual harm, it’s not knowing how dangerous they are that causes concern.
Perhaps what alarms me most is research that suggests how various cold-blooded creatures, including cockroaches, thrive and often breed more in warmer climates. And as Japan is seeing ever-higher summer temperatures, you can probably expect insect numbers to rise, too.
For an arachnophobe in Japan, the fall, winter and spring just can’t come quick — and stay long — enough.
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