Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of The Asahi Shimbun.
September 5, 2020 at 12:56 JST
For Daisaburo Okumoto, a scholar of French literature, one of his earliest memories is that of a dragonfly his father caught for him.
While the bug squirmed and struggled to flee, it kept glaring at him with its huge emerald-green eyes.
"I was 3 years old," he reminisced in his autobiographical essay titled "Cho no Oshie" (A butterfly's encouragement). "Instantly mesmerized by the otherworldly power of those eyes that seemed to be casting a spell on me, I was completely drawn into its world."
His boyhood fascination with insects continued into his adulthood, and Okumoto translated into Japanese the entire series of books on insects ("Entomological Souvenirs") by French naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-1915).
"Mushi no me," which translates literally as "bug's eye," denotes a perspective that focuses on minute detail.
I think I was in elementary school when I first looked closely at bugs' eyes. They were in close-up photos of various insects on the covers of school notebooks known collectively as "Japonica Gakushucho."
Those covers were discontinued eight years ago after some children complained they could not stomach looking at them. The bugs were replaced with photos of plants.
But according to the Sept. 3 issue of The Asahi Shimbun's evening edition, insect pictures were recently resurrected on the covers of a new series of notebooks.
I saw one with a long-horned beetle with a face I'd describe as tough and fearless.
I sometimes sense a universe in the world of bugs. One such instance would be when I pull a weed and inadvertently destroy the habitat of a colony of ants. Another would be upon discovering minuscule insects living on the flowers and stems of vegetables. That's when my inner sense of perspective gets a jolt.
Anatomist Takeshi Yoro, an insect lover, once wrote of the meaning of looking at an insect through a magnifying glass: "To magnify an insect 100-fold is tantamount to magnifying the world 100-fold."
There are tiny lives that make us aware of the "weight" of words such as nature and the global environment.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 5
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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A long-horned beetle is featured on the cover of a "Japonica Gakushucho" notebook for elementary school pupils. (The Asahi Shimbun)
