Cherokee's legend has it that a female grad student in Madison fell victim to leeches. Luckly for her, the girl was sucked nearby a compassionate hospital. She was carried into the hospital and escaped death. Yes. The most serious bloodsucker in the United States is leech.Mosquitoes take over the position, here in Japan. As you know, the Japanese are insular. Interestingly, so are mosquitoes in Japan. The mosquitoes won't attack to you; they are less friendly for thoese who are new to them like foreigners. In Japan, summer without mosquitoes is supposed to be extremely bland like non-alcohol beer. We Japanese enjoy getting weary of swarm of mosquitoes. But they never approach to you. You would suffer from alienation.
The coil in the photo is a mosquito coil, which is indispensable for Japanese summer life. We burn the coil to kill mosquitoes. You might wonder why we kill them while we enjoy their annoying presence. The reason is quite deep. We believe in reincarnation. Hoping they could rebirth as human, we kill them. Hard to understand? Indeed, it must be an exteremely elusive idea for you.
2 comments:
uh...i thought that the coil was to make smoke that discourages mosquitoes from coming near, not actually kill them... how does that fit into japanese views on reincarnation and depth.
Hi Anonymous,
I also think that the coils work as mosquito repellent. However, the coils contains an insecticidal chemical named pyrethroid. In TV commercials of mosquito coils, there are animated cartoons that mosquitoes are knocked down by the smoke. I think most Japanese recongize the coils as an insecticide rather than as a repellent. OK. I'll experiment how effective the coil smoke kills mosquitoes. I'll report results on my blog.
>japanese views on reincarnation and depth.
I made up the story. Don't believe it.
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