Noise

This year the cicadas are particularly noisy. We have them in our garden, and every morning, at around 5.30 they start up outside our bedroom window. It is like being woken by a chainsaw. Those kumazemi (bear cicadas) are LOUD, and I think it should be illegal for them to make that much noise at that time of day. I'm pretty sure if a person did it they'd be arrested.

Watching TV also becomes difficult when they are indulging in their noise-making activities outside the window. When the kumazemi start up, suddenly you can't hear a word anybody is saying on the TV. Unless you are good at lipreading you have to turn up the volume to hear anything anyone is saying, and then the kumazemi stops and the TV blasts at you so loudly you feel assaulted. Just when you get the volume back to a bearable level, the kumazemi start up again, and you can't hear anything.

People often say that they miss the sound of cicadas when they leave Japan. I think it must be one of those things that you miss in the same way that if you lived next to a karaoke bar you'd miss the sound when you moved.