Japanese Culture and The Insects
"How still it is here--Stinging into the stones, The locusts' trill" by Basho Matsuo who was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan, seems to be the shortest poem in the world. The strong sunshine, the shadows of fences and lanterns, and the voices of countless cicadas together represent summer in Japan.
The voices that stand out conspicuously echoes. Minminzemi cicada screams "Minmin" in the morning when the sun is strong, Higurashi cicada who sounds sad with "Kanakanakana" in the evening, and Tsukutsukuboushi cicada in late autumn "Tsukutsukuboshi, Suwichoon". The cicada voices are associated with the amount of light in summer and the image of the Japanese season and time.
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