Japan's Most Dangerous

[kurogane]

Take a bow

[matsuki]

We'll find out if I come across one but I thought the local bats were of the insect eating variety?

[wagyl]

We'll find out if I come across one but I thought the local bats were of the insect eating variety?

You can tell the vampire bats by the intense whooshing sound they make as they go over your head.

[matsuki]

The one that hit my minivan on saturday was more like a light thud....hopefully the lil guy is aiight, I was going pretty fast. Those old railway tunnels are like something out of a batman movie at night.

[Wage Slave]

Oh I see. Matsuki was complaining long and loud about being eaten by horseflies last weekend in the Tinkerers forum so the referential meaning of winged blood suckers was cemented for me as those. To be fair he did specifically mention them earlier on in the thread.

BTW, I seem to have it fixed in my mind that vampire bats don't suck. They scrape and lick. But I could be wrong about that.

[wagyl]

To be fair I was pretty certain what he was wanting to refer to as well. I even recognised that he was referring to insecticide, despite earlier talking about bear spray and the thread being initially about bears. But he left a gaping wide hole with his use of poetic flowery language and it would be wrong of me not to drive a colony of bats through it.

Matsuki, the bite of an abu, while annoying, is not particularly painful and only last as long as the bite itself. Whether you kill all of the abu in the general vector direction of your spray at that particular moment or not, there will be more and more coming anyway. I know that the locals dance and prance around like spastics whenever they see one, but that is completely unnecessary and unproductive: it just stops you doing whatever task you were wanting to do, and makes you look stupid. When they land, slap them off. Simple as that.

[kurogane]

Good advice, but it is ironic that if you kill them it will be abu-nai..............

[Russell]

Good advice, but it is ironic that if you kill them it will be abu-nai..............

On the other hand, if Matsuki will let them feast on him, it will be abu-nomics: feels good for them, but the basic resources are sucked dry...

[kurogane]

.................isn't abu-nomics the one that is all sting no bling?

(with apologies to unwilling participants...... )

[matsuki]

Matsuki, the bite of an abu, while annoying, is not particularly painful and only last as long as the bite itself. Whether you kill all of the abu in the general vector direction of your spray at that particular moment or not, there will be more and more coming anyway. I know that the locals dance and prance around like spastics whenever they see one, but that is completely unnecessary and unproductive: it just stops you doing whatever task you were wanting to do, and makes you look stupid. When they land, slap them off. Simple as that.

I put up netting where needed but the real issues I have are while operating the chainsaw/crane when a sudden flurry of them decide to come in for a meal. Not exactly a good time to freak out. The bites are more like the pinch of a needle than the super painful bites described by the locals but the itchyness afterwards is no fun either.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Just call it a fucking horsefly.

[Yokohammer]

They don't bite while they're fucking.

[wagyl]

They don't bite while they're fucking.

But the females do feast on blood to nourish their eggs, so they bite as a preliminary to fucking, and I will accept that one.

Just call it a fucking horsefly.

I myself do not call them horseflies because that name is not universal across all varieties of English, and is not used in my own. Of course, by those rules I should also talk about keitais and so on. And I will in fact use keitai in preference to cellphone. May include traces of bloodymindedness.

Not exactly a good time to freak out.

While you have my sympathy my point is that freaking out is not an essential part of the abu experience, no matter what the local practice might suggest. The abu certainly don't change their behaviour as a result of it.

Frankly, a splinter is more annoying than an abu bite, but I doubt anyone collapses into a ball of shuddering emotion over a splinter.

[Coligny]

They don't bite while they're fucking.

They don't know how to have fun...

[Russell]

Just call it a fucking horsefly.

I myself do not call them horseflies because that name is not universal across all varieties of English, and is not used in my own.

So it makes more sense then to use the Japanese name?

BTW, in Dutch they use the equivalent of the English "horsefly", so I suspect that in other European languages they have a similar word.

Maybe there are no horseflies down under, which justifies your lack of vocabulary concerning this part of the insect world...

[wagyl]

Horseflies are everywhere except Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and Hawaii, apparently.

To me, they are march flies. But if I use that name, no one will know what I am referring to, or indeed think that I am referring to a completely different insect. I certainly do not use the word abu outside of a Japanese environment.

A question to the rest of the anglosphere: how do you know that the ones here are horseflies, and not deerflies? (or indeed elephant flies or breeze flies or buffalo flies...)

[Russell]

Horseflies are everywhere except Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and Hawaii, apparently.

To me, they are march flies. But if I use that name, no one will know what I am referring to, or indeed think that I am referring to a completely different insect. I certainly do not use the word abu outside of a Japanese environment.

A question to the rest of the anglosphere: how do you know that the ones here are horseflies, and not deerflies? (or indeed elephant flies or breeze flies or buffalo flies...)

Maybe not buffalo flies, seeing how few buffaloes reside in Japan.

[Wage Slave]

Or gad-flies (as opposed to gadfly) apparently. I first met them in Queensland, home to a world leading collection of biting and stinging insects, and I they were horse flies I believe.

[Russell]

Best to paint the ball black, because then it resembles a horse most.

[wagyl]

Hung, like a horse, now look at my fucking abᵘs.

[matsuki]

hahahahaha

Might be worth trying with a PET bottle and some other 100yen stuff rather than 4,000yen worth of supplies. On the other hand, the abu will likely be fewer or gone in a couple weeks...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japanese fisherman uses karate skills to fight off black bear in mountains

A 63-year-old Japanese man says he used his karate skills to fight off a black bear that attacked him in a mountain creek.

Atsushi Aoki was fishing when the 190-centimetre animal set upon him in what he said was an unprovoked attack.

In scenes seemingly reminiscent of Leonardo Di Caprio's epic tussle with an angry bear in the Oscar-winning film The Revenant, Mr Aoki was bitten and scratched repeatedly, including on his head.

"The bear was so strong, and it knocked me down," Mr Aoki told Tokyo Broadcasting System.

"It turned me over and bit me right here," he added, pointing to his bandaged leg.

But instead of trying to outrun the animal — an Asian black bear — the fisherman decided he would use his well-honed karate skills.

After assuming a fighting stance with his right fist in front of him, Mr Aoki jabbed at his attacker's eyes, which sent the creature scrambling away into the woods.

[Russell]

Japanese fisherman uses karate skills to fight off black bear in mountains

A 63-year-old Japanese man says he used his karate skills to fight off a black bear that attacked him in a mountain creek.

Atsushi Aoki was fishing when the 190-centimetre animal set upon him in what he said was an unprovoked attack.

In scenes seemingly reminiscent of Leonardo Di Caprio's epic tussle with an angry bear in the Oscar-winning film The Revenant, Mr Aoki was bitten and scratched repeatedly, including on his head.

"The bear was so strong, and it knocked me down," Mr Aoki told Tokyo Broadcasting System.

"It turned me over and bit me right here," he added, pointing to his bandaged leg.

But instead of trying to outrun the animal — an Asian black bear — the fisherman decided he would use his well-honed karate skills.

After assuming a fighting stance with his right fist in front of him, Mr Aoki jabbed at his attacker's eyes, which sent the creature scrambling away into the woods.

I like this part of the story.

Despite media excitement over the episode, authorities in Japan advised against this course of action when confronted by one of Japan's numerous wild bears.

Better to be eaten then...

[wagyl]

The original Japanese news reports the police as advising to run away.
http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye2859167.html
Also, I don't think that that bear had eating a human as an aim. Biting and getting rid of a threat, yes, certainly, but not as a food source.

[Grumpy Gramps]

... media excitement over the episode ...

Dumb ass stomping about in bear country without paying attention to his surroundings, until the bear bites him in the ass is in my book no reason to celebrate him as a hero, no matter how lucky his escape might have been.

[matsuki]

Yappari Japaneeeeezu Karate!

[Russell]

Yappari Japaneeeeezu Karate!

But the guy didn't even leave empty-handed...

"He drove himself to hospital, and he even remembered to grab the fish that he had caught," a local police officer told AFP.

[Grumpy Gramps]

So it was maybe the fish that bit him?