Can You Guess?

One of the fun things about this blog is I can share random happenings in China. But the thing is, they're usually not random at all. It's just the way of life over in the East. Saturday my friend Alex and I popped in to the market by our work looking for some toys (we work for Disney, what can I say?)

On the way out, there was a man holding a bamboo rod. Attached to the rod was tons of little cages with holes in them.

I immediately knew what was in those cages by the sound I heard. Can you guess?

Here's a close up.

There are cicadas in there. It was the loudest sound of these insects chirping or whatever they do. As I got closer to take a picture, the man shook the rod and I screamed. More people stared. The story of my life in the Middle Kingdom.

Here's where the story gets more intriguing. I got a new assistant trainer recently. His name is Howard. He's the only male Chinese working for our center. As we were getting acquainted, we were talking about food and I was showing him some pictures of the Chinese foods I liked (since I tried to pronounce them and he kept laughing at me and giving funny looks. geez. I know I can't speak the language!) This picture was one that he scrolled past and he was like "Oh my dad has these at home." So logically I asked "Oh, as a pet? I've never seen people keep them as pets." And his reply "well, he feeds them until they are fat, then we deep fry them to eat. They're very delicious. Especially in the summer." Then he proceeded to tell me how I could dig a hole at the bottom of a tree at night and find tons of them for free. How nice. I wouldn't even have to purchase them to benefit from the delicious delicacy. He even offered to bring me some to try. I'm just so lucky.