(11) Little Red River Crabs

Soon after I began attending school, I found two boys living very near my dwelling house. My neighbour to the east was Maki-chan (we called like that when young) and to the west across the street was Hiro-chan.

One day, they invited me to catch river crabs. There was a one meter wide irrigation canal that flowed along the houses, each of which was built on piled up earth supported by stone walls.

About a hundred years ago, this area of Kosedo was flooded, and the street and some part of the houses were under water for many days. So that was why the houses were built higher than the road.

From the cracks of the stone walls, small red river crabs whose shell was less than 2cm, ran around, coming in and out at the openings. A sound would drive them to be swept all together, and in a while, appeared to be in a shoal together. I was fascinated to see the red crabs be like moving flowers on the stone walls, and often sat watching them.

One day, Maki-chan and Hiro-chan said they were going to catch crabs. Each of them brought a bucket, a stick and something else, and handed me a stick with a hanging thread about 1.5 meter long.

Maki-chan said, 'Tie a piece of takuan (=pickled radish) at the top end of the thread' as he did so, and I followed as he did.
'Watch us catch one.'

Maki-chan and Hiro-chan began to move up and down the stick with the thread and takuan in front of running crabs on the stone walls.
At once a crab opened his claws and caught the takuan, and hanging down from it, he was carried into the bucket with a plop! Here it was!

"Do it like that, it's very easy!" said Maki-chan.

So excited, I put the stick forward, and moved the takuan right and left, then a crab jumped to it raising its claws. It was very easy even for me to catch one.

The bucket was soon filled with the crabs rattling and clattering. We caught them as much as we wanted. Soon the two buckets were so much full of crabs that we couldn't see the bottoms. We stopped catching them fully satisfied and laid down the sticks.

I wondered what Maki-chan and Hiro-chan would do with so many of these crabs. Then saying nothing, both of them turned the bucket upside down onto the road, and the crabs made a dash for the stone-walls.

I was surprised to see the unexpected scene, muttering in my mind, "What! Just leaving them!"

"Let's do it again sometime, shall we? Bye!"

Both Maki-chan and Hiro-chan took their buckets and sticks with threads and went home. Every time they caught those crabs. they freed them like that, so the crabs knew it and played with the boys happily and safely, I thought.

About eight years later, when I visited Grandfather's house from Kitaura district near Kurashiki City, there was not a single crab around the stone wall.  I heard that was because the villagers began to use agricultural chemicals for the rice field and the vegetable field.

Due to those agrochemicals, the villagers' fields produced more abundant harvest, and the area was brightened with lot more fields of mat rush.

At the same time, the red crabs had lost their dwellings or were wiped out of the stone walls. I did hope they escaped toward the mountains at the back of Grandfather's house.

After coming up to Tokyo as a university student, I was startled to know that deep-fried small crabs were eaten by people, especially those who were drinkers. If I knew those crabs were edible in those days, and had eaten so much as there were so many, I would have grown taller than I am now. Thinking so, I smiled a wry smile, because I realized I was a realistic omnivore, not an idealistic romantic dreamer!