Saturday, June 18, 2016

Japanese Firefly Culture, ♪Ho-Ho Hotaru(Fireflies) Come-on!

What I wrote in the title above is the first line of an old Japanese children's song. As I introduced in my other blog, "Yuko Takayama" on June 16thsince old times Japanese people have been fond of Hotaru (fireflies) , those fantastic glowing creatures.  People enjoy "Hotaru (fireflies) Viewing" as a seasonal summer activity.

Apparently there are 40 kinds of Hotaru (fireflies) in Japan. However, two kinds of Hotaru are best known and people in Japan can identify them easily. In fact, most Japanese know them without looking up in Google. 


One is called "Genji Botaru (Genji Firefly)" and the other is called "Heike Botaru" (Heike Firefly). Genji Botaru is bigger and brighter than Heike Botaru, and they only hatch and live around clear creeks. So they can be an indicator of well-preserved nature. On the other hand, Heike Botaru can hatch and live in ponds as well as rice paddies. 


Actually their names have a contrast and probably the fact made people remember the names more easily. Genji and Heike are both famous historical family names going back to the 8-9 century. The two families were both relatives of the emperor family and later became upper military families. There was a long history of rivalry between the two families and therefore the two family names were always mentioned as a set. Perhaps, in a sense, it can be said that they were like Capulets and the Montagues in the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet. You can see now why most people in Japan can say both names without looking them up.


Of course the two kinds of Hotarus (fireflies) do not have any rivalry and people enjoy seeing both types of fireflies for their beautiful lights in summer evenings. The continuation of the old children's song in the beginning is 
♪The water is sweeter here! Over there the water must be bitter. Ho-ho Hotaru (fireflies) come-on!♪

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