Of Mukade

Well, Japan has officially entered its ridiculously hot and humid summer season. This means that all of the super-sized bugs have come out in force. The suzumebachi are flying around, the giant cockroaches and ants are coming out, but without a doubt, the mukade (ムカデ) are crawling out of the woods.

I don't really know how to describe mukade except for the fact that they're centipedes about 5 cm long, and they're just plain terrifying. Getting bit by one is not something to be taken lightly. In fact, you should probably go to the hospital. As long as you're a healthy human being, you'll be fine, but if you're a child or an elderly individual, they're far more dangerous. Mukade tend to come out at night, so you'll normally be bitten while you're sleeping. This is exactly why they're so dangerous. Depending on where the bite is - for example, if it's close to your heart or your neck - the consequences are much more severe. Otherwise, apparently you suffer extreme pain.

The other International House deals with mukade often. In fact, they've developed a Mukade Killing Competition Chart, where they rack up the number that each of them has killed as a kind of morbid game. I believe one guy killed about 15 of them in a couple weeks. Regardless, pamphlets and other announcements of how to deal with the dreaded mukade have started circling around.

My personal favorite is how you're supposed to apply first aid for these things. The English goes something like this, "If bitten, immediately remove the centipede and crush the head. Then, while running cold water over the wound, squeeze out the venom. If the wound is painful, go see a doctor."

However, the best part of this is how you're supposed to eradicate these things. No matter who you talk to, the preferred method is always something short of the absurd. The Mukade Killing Club recommends chopping the centipede into pieces as if you're playing a role in some sort of Poe horror story. The standard method seems to be pouring boiling water on them or wrapping them in newspaper and lighting them on fire. Ridiculous? Absolutely. Yet, even this still doesn't seem to kill the bug from your nightmares.

No joke. Taku, one of the buddies over at the other International House, doused a mukade the other day in a pot of boiling water. It stayed dead for about a couple hours. But then it got back up and continued to wreak havoc around the dorm. This begs the question, if you can't kill it with a pot of boiling water, what on earth are you supposed to do?

I personally think that we should pit the mukade against the suzumebachi. Maybe one of them will wipe the other out. I haven't figured out yet what purpose these things serve in the food chain. Supposedly some sort of hardcore indestructible bird eats them, but surely it might enjoy eating something that doesn't threaten kill it more. Either way, the mukade curse continues.