Jan 11 2008
Insects and worms
I always view insects and worms are scary and dirty. Far more scary than dirty. When I first got to Hong Kong, I screamed in the classroom upon seeing a huge flying cockroach, my first time ever. The teacher turned around toward us, asking what’s the commotion was about. The whole class gone silent - were they just reaffirmed that people from mainland were just totally unworldly? - then busting out laugh. In Beijing, in the city any way since I don’t remember seeing it in Zhongguancun, we had tubie 土鳖, black in color crawling on the ground. I actually don’t know how the bie should be written, but guess it’s 鳖 which is a soft-shelled turtle in dictionary. We often dabbed someone tubie, as = taike.
Funny enough, my mom was the editor for the scientific journal 昆虫学报 Acta Entomological Sinica at Institute of Zoology - under the auspice of Chinese Academy of Sciences. IOZ merged with the Institute of Entomology in 1962.