Cicada Madness

I am not a person of hate. I hate relatively few things in life. But if you were to ask me the one thing I hate the most about living in Japan? It's the cicadas. I hate cicadas with the heat of a thousand suns.

Cicadas are gross, disgusting, gigantic insects that live below ground for the first seven years of their miserable lives before emerging and living in trees wailing and crying and making the world's worst noises before shedding their shell, dying or being unceremoniously eaten by the large black crows that also infest this city.

You don't believe me? Try listening to one cicada sing his sweet song of death. (Warning, audio starts automatically...you'll need to be in a place where those around you won't mind listening to a noise that could literally make them vomit.)

To me this is the sound I would make if I were being tortured to death, slowly...by insects. And in a way I am being tortured to death because I can hear these bugs through my windows, and they drive me crazy. And can you imagine how awful it can get when you have hundreds and thousands wailing away at the same time? It can literally drive you crazy if you let it. Cicadas last throughout the summer and luckily we're just past the peak. But they are still a force.

So, now you know something that I hate.