Crickets

Well, I suppose it isn’t news to a lot of people on this forum, but I was quite surprised when I learned recently that crickets have been kept in China as pets by all classes. People enjoyed listening to them chirp, and children often had their crickets fight since the Song. I even heard the creator of Pokemon said these activities from his childhood largely inspired the cartoon. None of this mentions the whole eating of crickets in Taiwan.

So I looked some stuff online and I find the whole topic fascinating, especially since I’ve had a special fondness for crickets, and always thought of them as my favorite live bait for fishing.

Does anyone have interesting to say about this?

Some links:
Chinese Cricket Culture
Taiwan Cricket site
中国蟋蟀网
Rearing Crickets
Rearing Crickets (another site)

A story in Pu Songling’s Liaozhai Zhiyi 《聊齋志異 》 called “Cricket” 促織:

chinakongzi.net/2550/big5/bo … sp?id=2224