Sounds of autumn insects 2014/08/19
It is still hot in Tokyo. It is forecasted the temperature of this afternoon will reach to around 35 degrees with around 70% humidity.
However, according to the traditional seasonal divisions by Japanese style calendar, autumn has begun since August 7th.
Japanese tend to take seasons in advance and find it happy to feel refreshing autumn coolness in the morning and evening in spite of hot and sticky mid days
They are satisfied with morning glories wet with dew and they are convinced the visit of autumn by listening into sounds of insects.
There are so many autumn insects in Japan which produce graceful cool sounds. Most of them are families of a cricket or a grasshopper.
We can find lots of romantic songs which praised and enjoyed sounds of insects in the 1200 years old anthology, Manyoshu.
Therefore listening to the sounds of insects seems to be long continued Japanese culture.
Especially in Heian period (794-1185), it became a fashion among nobles at the court. They wandered around fields in the autumn evening where various species of crickets or grasshoppers singing vigorously, then they enjoyed the game to differentiate one species from another by their sounds. They named each species such as bell cricket or pine cricket and so on. Those names and their sounds are still popular among modern Japanese.
bell cricket pine cricket
