Why do gaijins hate the sound of cicadas?

[Takechanpoo]

[YT]Ez7bPjSJGc8[/YT]
it sounds comfortable to most of Japanese though.

[james]

take, where on earth did you get this idea? i can only speak for myself, but they don't bother me any more than any other sound, and i'm generally quite sensitive to noise.

sounds i do hate:

- loudspeaker cars
- lunchtime air-raid sirens (hint to town office - war ended 60+ years ago)
- heavy construction on four sides of my house
- sparrows
- my mother-in-law chewing her food with her mouth open
- cows
- distorted j-pop on conbini loudspeakers

to name a few.

[American Oyaji]

I like the sound of semi in the summer. It is very natsukashii

[Cyka UchuuJin]

true sign of a new gaijin...one who asks the estate agent to find them a flat near a park.

[Takechanpoo]

My wrong guess?

Sooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[james]

true sign of a new gaijin...one who asks the estate agent to find them a flat near a park.

arright, very drunk here, but tell me, how does one get so many greenies with just two posts?

[Iraira]

arright, very drunk here, but tell me, how does one get so many greenies with just two posts?

You never heard of the FG Greenie Furikomi system? It's not about the number of the posts, it's about the number of bills wire transfered to "someone's" account....

I'm gonna lose greenies for revealing this, aren't I?

[Mulboyne]

[American Oyaji]

Ive always enjoyed the sound of cicadas. even in wester pennsylvania we had them.

[Mulboyne]

More on that fibre optic problem:

Asahi: Singing scourge causes communication breakdown

Koji Urakawa of NTT West Corp. thought "it must be a joke" when he discovered the cause of a problem with the company's extensive fiber-optic networks. Since 2002, the regional subsidiary of telecommunications giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. has received over a thousand reports of summertime interruptions to its fiber-optic communications. In most cases, the damage has been done to the lead-in cables stretching from main lines into homes. The culprit turned out to be the kumazemi (Cryptotympana facialis), a type of large, black cicada commonly found in western Japan. The noisy insect, which apparently mistakes the cables for dead tree branches, pierces the core wire to deposit its eggs, occasionally breaking the wire and often leaving holes that let in water. "At first, after discovering cicadas were the problem, I thought it must be a joke," said Urakawa, an official of the company's network department.

Kumazemi--literally "bear cicada"--is said to be the largest cicada in Japan. It grows up to about 7 centimeters. In Osaka this summer, NTT West workers are engaged in a heated battle with the insect, which emerges there en masse every four years. This year there has been a particularly large explosion in numbers. Kumazemi have also started spreading to colder northern regions of Japan, possibly aided by global warming. Hideharu Numata, professor of animal physiology at Osaka City University, warns that "countermeasures will soon be needed in the Kanto region, too."

So far, cable damage has mostly been reported in western Japan, from Kyushu to the Tokai region. Last year, customers reported about 1,000 cases to NTT West. A further 200 complaints were lodged with K-Opticom Corp., a telecommunication company wholly owned by Kansai Electric Power Co. Similar complaints are coming in this summer. According to Numata, the hard ovipositor of kumazemi, which is about 1 millimeter in diameter and longer than 1 cm, can easily penetrate the polyethylene resin covering the core wire of the fiber-optic cable. The cut may dent or break the wire, and often leaves a hole which allows water to penetrate.

NTT West started to use an improved lead-in cable at the end of August 2006, when the peak time for egg-laying was over. The new cable has resin-made protective shields embedded in the polyethylene cover on both sides of the core wire. Company officials are hoping the new cable will prove effective. Tatsuta Electric Wire & Cable Co., a cable maker in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, observed how kumazemi deposit their eggs by laying cables in trees. When it discovered that the creatures do not lay eggs in living or unseasoned trees, the company this spring started to sell cables made with polyurethane--which has the same feel as the bark on living trees.

[ttjereth]

Ive always enjoyed the sound of cicadas. even in wester pennsylvania we had them.

My uncle lived in WV and my University was around Pittsburgh and I was there during one of the years those 17 year locusts (cicadas) were around and I found them to be much, much worse than the Japanese ones. Not the sound, but the being everywhere in huge bloody swarms and covering you when mow the lawn etc.

The only noise the Japanese cicadas make that bothers me is them smacking into my windows at night. Sounds like a bird sometimes.

[GomiGirl]

I've never had a problem with cicadas as I grew up with them too. But how can Take say that Japanese love them? I was at the Earth Celebration concerts during Obon and these were outdoor in a big park. Occassionally a cicada would fall into the crowd and buzz around etc and all the japanese folk around us would try to flick them away or would screach and jump like they are being attacked by a big brown spider or something. It was the foreigners like us who would catch the disorientated little cicada and set it free on a nearby tree.

[Greji]

My uncle lived in WV and my University was around Pittsburgh and I was there during one of the years those 17 year locusts (cicadas) were around and I found them to be much, much worse than the Japanese ones. Not the sound, but the being everywhere in huge bloody swarms and covering you when mow the lawn etc.

The only noise the Japanese cicadas make that bothers me is them smacking into my windows at night. Sounds like a bird sometimes.

You shouldn't really post this information, as it will hurt Take's feelings badly. He was under impression that the cicada was a unique, made-in-Japan unique cultural artifact which produces a unique noise which can only be appreciated by the uniquely sensitive ear of unique Japanese.

I'm like you except from the mid-west. Same name, 17 year locusts and we used to have to smash them up as squishy as May Flies. Must be our lack of culture and uncouthness.

[dimwit]

Personally, I've never had problems with the noise of cicadas, but in Japan they don't have the decency to go and die in the forest, and you end up with insect innards all over your bicycle.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Plenty of Cicadas down South where I was born too. I find their sound to be quite soothing.

[ttjereth]

You shouldn't really post this information, as it will hurt Take's feelings badly. He was under impression that the cicada was a unique, made-in-Japan unique cultural artifact which produces a unique noise which can only be appreciated by the uniquely sensitive ear of unique Japanese.

I'm like you except from the mid-west. Same name, 17 year locusts and we used to have to smash them up as squishy as May Flies. Must be our lack of culture and uncouthness.

Oops. Guess I better keep quiet on the 4 seasons thing huh?

When my uncle used to mow the lawn I guess the cicadas were attracted to the sound of the mower or something so by the time he was done he was covered in them. My aunt used to not let him back in the house until she was sure he got rid of all em

[Kuang_Grade]

http://www.indiana.edu/~preserve/research/CicadasPres/slide14.html

Map of 13 and 17 year cicada broods in the US. they pop out in huge numbers as a part of a strategy of predator satiation...So many pop out at one time that any and all predators will eat their fill of them and there will be still plenty survivors left over to breed the next generation.

[FG Lurker]

I don't hate "normal" cicadas, I quite enjoy their sound. The sound of summer, very pleasant while having lunch in the park.

The "monster" cicadas that are around Osaka this year though are ear-splittingly loud. It can't be explained without experiencing it really, but a few trees full of them redefines the concept of maximum volume.

[amdg]

100% with you there.

Yeah, for some reason Japanese have this idea that foreigners hate the semi. I don't think we do, I quite like them - at normal volume.

Once though, back when I lived next to a park, some mornings it was intolerable - ear-splitting, vomit inducing, brain immobilisingly loud.

[Iraira]

Oops. Guess I better keep quiet on the 4 seasons thing huh?

When my uncle used to mow the lawn I guess the cicadas were attracted to the sound of the mower or something so by the time he was done he was covered in them. My aunt used to not let him back in the house until she was sure he got rid of all em

Are you sure that was the real reason she wouldn't let him back in the house?

[Iraira]

Personally, I've never had problems with the noise of cicadas, but in Japan they don't have the decency to go and die in the forest, and you end up with insect innards all over your bicycle.

Personally, I kinda like watching them when they are in their throughs of death. Bouncing repeatedly into windows, trying to figure out why they don't quite have the mobility they had only a few days earlier. If only J-salarimen would do the same thing, it would make for some great video.

[shazzb0t]

I simply find their existence to be amazing. Hell, for the majority of their lives they live in the ground. They come up for just a short while and then die. It is an amazing if not tragic existence.

[akatsuka]

I like cicadas as it means its summer. im one of the freaks who actually likes summer in Tokyo. I think its because I have been deprived of sun for much of my life. (Im from London) I only hate cicadas when they start dieing. They are very ugly and kids like to run up to you holding them.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

is it just me, or are they louder than ever this year?

[halfnip]

They must be crying too, because IT'S TOO FUCKING HOT OUT HERE!

[Cyka UchuuJin]

They must be crying too, because IT'S TOO FUCKING HOT OUT HERE!

if you're in the kanto minato-ku, i send my sympathies. i was in tokyo for exactly 35 minutes en route to naeba a couple weeks ago and christ almighty was it misery. i thought the osaka concrete was hot, but tokyo is a bleedin hell of heat.

[Maths Dude]

I never really liked the day time ones, but for some reason at night they had a different song that I found very soothing, and always quickly fell asleep.

[Mike Oxlong]

I like cicadas. Make me think of summer beer snacks...

[IkemenTommy]

I never really liked the day time ones, but for some reason at night they had a different song that I found very soothing, and always quickly fell asleep.

Dude, you must be on crack! How can you sleep to that god awful sound? If you are making comparison of the cicada noise with a song, then you have got to be referring to be one of the shitty Backstreet Boys songs.

Nah, I'm just joking. I like the sound of cicadas too. ]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Japanese_cicade_semi.jpg/250px-Japanese_cicade_semi.jpg[/IMG]
These suckers are loud.

[American Oyaji]

Cicadas never bothered me. I lived up in Aomori and I guess there was enough greenery that they stayed in the forests and didnt need to come into town so their sounds were always in the distance.