Catching frogs, chasing lizards, fishing for crayfish, that’s fun! Picture Japanese kids with dirty hands having clean fun! I’ve done it, and enjoyed it too. Getting back in touch with nature in the spring helps me feel young again. And, well, somebody has to show my daughter how to do it. Children love the hands on approach to learning. Especially if they (we?) can get dirty while doing it! Here is what you need to do in order to “be a kid again”, in Japan.
Tie a piece of dried squid with a meter of twine to a chopstick, lower your bait into any local parks’ ponds wait patiently for a crayfish (zarigani) to snatch the bait then yank the unwary crustacean out of the water. If you choose you can save them up in a small plastic “aquarium” as most kids do at the parks. I prefer to catch and release, which avoids the disposal of our fragile friends at the end of the week.
Walk along the rice patties close to the water’s edge in the spring when they are ’softening the earth’ before planting, a small frog (kaeru) will jump out from under your feet revealing its location, hopefully not into the leech (hiru) infested waters and you can scoop it up if you have fast hands. These aren’t big nasty toads, they are still cute while small, often bright green sometimes gray-brown. Don’t wade into the muck to catch them without sturdy rubber boots on though! The leeches are everywhere and while not painful, definitely unpleasant to remove.
The temperature is a wonderful 20C-25C the birds are singing and the Tokage (small brown lizards) are coming out to warm themselves on the sun heated rocks. Now is your chance to chase down one of these grass lizards. You have to move quickly with these lizards they require a higher level of commitment then the frogs or crayfish. The one I found I rewarded for its troubles by catching a fat little grasshopper (inago) for its lunch. I haven’t done it, but I’m told if you hold them by the tail they drop it and scamper away, but, I have seen a tail discarded as an escape strategy wiggling away on the sidewalk for the predator to claim instead of the owner.
