The Unwritten Code of Killing Bugs

And boy do we have a ton in Frog's Glen

Confession right up front. I hate bugs. I’ve been a bug squisher since childhood.

Now, I know. I have been told countless times that some insects are quite good, even helpful. They eat bad insects, say. Or they are positive contributors to a delicate ecosystem—mess with any of this and you can do untold damage.

Got it. But I am still inclined to kill any I see.

No, don’t! He’s good! He eats other bugs. Blah blah blah.

This is a problem when living in Japan. Disconcertingly, the nation feels that most insects should live. There seems to be an unwritten Code that governs which bugs should be gently returned to nature (almost every damn one of them) and which are just fine to dispatch on sight (a tiny few).

Foreigners are never briefed on this Code. In the eyes of our hosts, we simply barge into the country one day and begin stomping and swatting our way to some really bad karma the next.

But I think I’ve self-taught a few ways to navigate the “is it okay to kill this insect” conundrum here. First, I remind myself the list of bugs that decent people are expected to never kill is absurdly long. Go through your life in Japan erring more toward “gently carry (the awful creature) outside so it may peacefully live out its (disgusting) existence elsewhere” and you’ll likely do fine.

Sometimes I forget my own rules. The other day I was chatting in the Frog’s Glen kitchen with Toru and mid-sentence I absent mindedly smooshed an ant that happened across our countertop. It was just a lost singleton guy and I didn’t want him around. It was that simple. I dispatched him with the tip of an index finger, flicked his remnants into the trash, and then tried to continue where I had left off.

Toru gasped. “What did you do that for?” he asked, his eyes wide as if I just machine gunned deer lapping at a stream.

I was like…what? That? What was I supposed to do? It was an ant. I don’t want him here. It likely didn’t help my case when I added that only death would send a message to his friends too.

I am clearly a horrible man.

Ah but this is Japan, and like with much here, there are maddening inconsistences scattered throughout the rules.

One cockroach—of any size—shows in the house and Toru not only lets out a blood-curdling shriek, he rushes to a Weapons Stash (that he stocks, not me) to grab a can of what I think is over-the-counter Agent Orange. This shit doesn’t just melt the roach, it seems to first wreak twisty nerve damage on the bug just for fun.

No karma problems there, clearly.

Hey, I’m all for coating a roach in whatever spray stops him in his tracks—you won’t hear me complaining. But what’s the difference between an ant and a cockroach? I’d say both need to disappear pronto.

Nope. One we should carefully carry outside to send on his innocent way, and the other we melt.

There’s actually one other critter that all of Japan agrees needs immediate dispatch…the mosquito. Believe me, I get no “What did you do that for” gasp when I’m quick enough to punch a skeeter into the wallpaper. Japanese clap when I do that. “Great shot!”

By the way, pro tip. If you’re still using weird sticky strips, lights, and sprays for them, you’re doing it all wrong. Japanese have put decades of R&D into the rubbing out of mosquitoes, and there is broad consensus on the smoke coil. Until recently I thought the smoke was a repellant, keeping the mozzies at bay with some smell they detest. Wrong. This is just another nerve bomb and it kills mosquitoes MID-FLIGHT. They drop from the sky on a single whiff. 

Shout out to Mitsubishi Chemical.

So okay. Japanese and non-Japanese alike agree that cockroaches and mosquitoes must go.

But any agreement seems to end there. The common house fly? Japanese would prefer that you cup it so it can be gently returned to the outside world—if that requites too much dexterity you can spend an hour coaxing it toward a door or window to usher it to its freedom. Moths “haven’t done anything wrong,” grasshoppers and crickets are cute (ask Disney!), and huge, awful scarab beetles with clamping jaws and claws are such good luck school kids keep them as pets.

Ridiculous child.

Don’t get me started on spiders—the worst of all. I’ve been assured that no matter how hairy, jumpy, bitey, and web-squirting they are, “they eat all the bad bugs.” If I sin terribly in this life and am consigned to come back as a spider in the next, please God let me be sent to Japan.

I’d like to say that soon I will have the insect code mastered. In private I’ll continue to smoosh ants to my heart’s content (who wouldn’t?), but one day I hope to know precisely how to behave publicly within the insect-judgmental community around me.

Four new holes in my cashmere sweater in the closet? No issue. I will smile and remark to Toru what a shame the damage is. And of course add that it certainly wasn’t the moth’s fault who “was just doing moth things.” Gently cupping the offender in my hands, I will release him to the garden and bid him all the best as he moves on to lunch elsewhere.

I’ll let you know when the day comes.