Stinked!

Fall is Kamemushi season. Kamemushi are Japanese stinkbugs, and after October, they are everywhere. By all accounts they like white things and bright things, so you often find them hanging out on your laundry or on your kitchen lights.

The Japanese hate them. I mean, they REALLY hate them. Class will stop dead if the kids see a kamemushi. They are paralyzed with fear. Most foreigners are a little mystified with the high level of fear these little things induce. I mean, they're just bugs, right? Maybe they stink a little, but is it really that bad?

Last year, we never managed to get a whiff of stinkbug stink. And given the amount of bugs we hassled onto papers [to move outside] or trapped with a glass, you'd imagine we wouldn've ticked one off. Nope. But this year was different. Aaron accidently stinked himself when he smacked a mosquito on his neck. Whoops, not a mosquito. But it faded pretty quickly. I got my first whiff a week ago at school. Apparently someone stepped on one in the hallway, leading to many whines of "Kusai!" [stinky] Did the stench live up to its reputatation? Nah. I thought it smelled like windex mixed with celery seeds. Not great, but not gut-wrenching.

Another reason the Japanese hate seeing these bugs-- apparently they're harbingers of winter. The more you see, the more snow will fall. Life is interesting in Japan.