Are Crickets Good Luck? People rarely ask deep, random questions about crickets as opposed to wondering about ‘where does luck come from?’. Whatever the clear answer may be, some of us tend to hold on to a certain belief that any specific object or circumstance carry a substantial supernatural relevance or meaning to it. If in an unforeseen predicament, we can call it serendipity. On the other hand, if pertaining to objects, we have examples such as crystals, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, dragonflies, the four-leaf-clover symbol and many more.
Crickets are small and delicate insects, they resemble the most with grasshoppers. They have long antennae and strong hind legs for jumping. They also have wings for flying and chirping. Specified only for the males, the produced ‘chirping sounds’ at night is the sound that we often affiliate with the perception of awkward silence! There are crickets who reside in our houses but mostly they are outdoor creatures. House crickets are attracted to our houses because of our night light that glows out through our windows, and they are also attracted to houses because there are other insects that live and manifest, and would serve as the cricket’s food, as well as the fact that they are looking for shelter. Outdoor crickets, on the other hand, reside in tree canopies, in bushes, in grasslands, burrows, anywhere that they can make habitat of, especially in forests. They would play or sing their ‘cricket-sound’ to attract mates or to express being hurt or whenever they are being threatened by other fellow crickets to indulge in a fight and ensign male-cricket domination.
Crickets are said to be integral to nature, playing a vital role in the natural environment, consuming plants or fruit and other insects, dead or alive, and are in return, consumed by a multitude of their insect-eating predators, some of which are insect-eating birds, adult salamanders, and praying mantids. They also feed on dried leaves and other rotting organic matter which contributes to the aid in breaking down the matter by nibbling and letting it pass through their body, depositing it back onto the soil. Crickets help contribute to breaking down organic matter by eating therefore speeding things up in the natural process.
When male crickets chirp, they do this by rubbing their wings together. It is similar as to the sound you get when you run your fingers through the teeth of a comb. It is said to produce a ‘stridulating’ sound commonly referred to as ‘stridulation’. The crickets are either engaging in courtship whenever a female cricket is around the vicinity and that specific type of chirp is called a ‘song of courtship’. When the female cricket is nowhere, the male cricket would make another different sound. The sound is this time
is louder, resembling the calling of someone from afar. This song is called the ‘song of calling’, that of which they would sing to also help ward off other male crickets.
Crickets live everywhere and they come in different colors and names. They can adapt and survive in any type of environment as long as they have around with them their food, and their mates, and their shelter during the winter season and that no harm is threatened upon them, which is why they are widely known around the world and are often turned into emblems of ausperity and are often retold in an inclusive scope of folklore and myths, poetry and essays, and even envisaged as creatures that can allegedly predict the coming of rain.
The Refinement of Cricket Culture in China
Crickets are heavily embedded in Chinese ancient culture. People in ancient China appreciated how these tiny creatures make their chirping sounds at night as it is said to have helped them fall asleep, especially applied firstly to the royalty. They believe that crickets pertain to bliss and therefore kept them in cages that are artistically-crafted, opulent and miniscule in design. The crickets would then be placed near their bed side during sleep. Ordinary people in town were influenced by this quaint hobby and had copied the reputedly upscale actions. People would put crickets in wooden, often bamboo-made cages and hang their pet crickets in their abodes as a lucky charm and as well as a sophisticated gesture.
Asides from the sound that the cricket insects produce, Chinese culture also anticipated and engaged in cricket insect battles. Folks would keep crickets as pets and place them in a gourd-container and take care of them, along with other pets like cicadas and grasshoppers. It is said that the emperors of the Tang Dynasty were the first one to indulge in the activity of predilection and then the common folks followed. It grew to become an enjoyment for commoners which caused the sport to be further popularized. From Tang, Song, to the Quing Dynasty, the game had been played, but it was during the Quing Dynasty that emperors commanded and perfected the meticulous selection and fine breeding of crickets to be their champion warrior in their cricket-insect tournaments. Up to this day, there are still people who engage in fighting-crickets-battle. The sport these days is usually enjoyed and established to somewhat celebrate the revision of Chinese traditional antiquity. Even way before, in the olden times, crickets are already known as symbols of luck and a totem of ‘resurgence’. A female cricket lays five to ten eggs a day which flourished the myth or superstition in ancient China that giving birth to a lot of children is therefore a signification of prosperity.
We don’t know for sure why crickets are considered a relation to good fortune or whether or not they have really been proven to be serendipitous. Although China has been quite consistent with being on the list of prosperous countries, with folks honing with them the pride of their many great discoveries and compilation of rich history that of which the rest of the world are quite aware of.
Crickets are still a part of the cycle of nature. They will continue to do what they have to do as insect creatures. People have come up with a multitude of fun ways to make life here on Earth merrier and diverse such as further persisting Ideas of ‘cricket cuisine’ and ‘cricket superfood’. We can sometimes speculate laughably whether or not, crickets may even help save the world due to their high-nutrient content found in their bodies and cricket-abundance. We may speculate that crickets are highly adaptable creatures, their deflation and pressure towards them due to climate change would have to result in evolution.
It would also be interesting to point out that scientists have had been trying to discover more and more about our possibility to survive as a human race, whether or not, if we can survive global warming if it reaches at point-severity. In one of the many researches, scientists are said to be observing crickets and its ability to respond to the changes in their environment.
We may never really know for certain if crickets really are lucky as it all seems embedded and rooted in ravishing, innocent art, and ancient culture. Luck remains one of those transcendent topics that are either coincidental or fantastical. But one thing can be certain, we don’t hate, only appreciate.
Also read other interesting question How Long Do Dreams Last?
