Death of a Cockroach

K was shocked when seeing a cockroach in the living room. The amount of poison that he sprayed on that evil insect probably explained the unmeasurable astonishment that he was thrown in.

After clearing away the remains of the cockroach, K determined to chase out all of the possible members of the cockroach family remaining in the house. He showed to me his lethal weapon: cockroach houses. This time, I was the one who was in astonishment. Products of cockroach house across the world, I believe, shared the same design and adopted the same method no matter how culturally distinctive their appearances might be. I thought that the design was usually made as unnoticeable as possible, for instance, small size and simple color prevailed. After all they were kind of embarrassing witnesses to the hygienic standard of a house, weren't they? (of course, this statement can be challenged in many ways especially in the context of Asian countries where this creature never seems to disappear.)
However, the cockroach house that K presented to me was certainly another unmissable product of the kawaii (可愛い) culture of Japan.

The packet contained several parts that would make a good and effective trap.

First you removed the paper that covers the sticky pad and glued a sachet of 'cockroaches' snacks' in the middle in order to attract those unpleasant cohabitants.Then, on two of the entrances to the house, you stuck cotton slips. My Japanese proficiency, if there were any, didn't really help me at this point. According to K, sometimes cockroaches had wet feet after crawling through pipes or wet stuff, and they were expected to wipe their feet on these 'doormats'!

Oh my! :-O No wonder the slips had images of cockroaches with their dry and happy feet!

There was more etiquette awaiting its visitors, it seemed.
On the other two sides of the house were two doors through which cockroaches might also pass. A cockroach san was represented as a gentleman knocking on the door before being invited into the house!

I knew it's going a bit insane now, but the imagination behind the design didn't seem to stop here.

The house had a weathercock on the roof!!
At first, I thought it was another useless decoration that was imposed on the world of non-humans. But guess what, to my surprise, it was also functional!! K told me that it served as a handle when you pick it up and throw it away. It kept your hands uncontaminated.

Up to this point, the initial shock at the appearance of the cockroach was gone. The entire process of assembling the cockroach houses and understanding its design were absolutely amusing.


Let's wait and see how many cockroach sans would come to have a cup of tea.