Especially if there's money at stake: The forbidden element of
gambling is one of the causes behind the contemporary resurgence of
cricket fighting. At matches where money is exchanged, the pressure
is as intense as at a heavyweight
boxing match in Vegas. Cheating -
such as giving the insects stimulants - is not uncommon.
Occasionally, cricket-fighting dens are even raided, resulting in
police arresting the gamblers and confiscating cash and crickets.
So-called luxury games, held in outlying provinces, switch venues
for each match in order to avoid the police.
The majority of today's
cricket culture is aboveground, though -
and accepted in society. There are even some cities, like Jinan,
where fights are broadcast live on television. And Chongming
Island, off the coast of
Shanghai, hosts a six-day national
cricket-fighting competition, drawing hundreds of fans and their
combative insects from all over the country.
Beijing's Chinese Culture Club also sponsors cricket matches.
Mariel Escudero and Sonia Dupont, expats who live in the city and
work on the Latin American website GRILA.net (Grupo de Residentes
Ibero Latino Americano), recently attended a cricket lecture and
workshop at
Beijing's culture center, which provides
English-language services for non-Chinese residents. The class
culminated in cricket bouts for all participants. "I found it
fascinating," Escudero tells me. So fascinating, in fact, that she
and Dupont collaborated on an article about it for their website
and even posted a fight video on YouTube.
It's said that there are as many as 900 species of crickets in the
world, and the Chinese cricket culture includes a number of
variants.
The best singing crickets are said to possess thick wings with wide
veins. (Only mature males make the chirping noise, produced by
rubbing their forewings together.) A cricket can create as many as
five distinct calls, including an after-mating sound and sounds
that signify courtship or attack. Some insect keepers will alter
the wings of their favorite crickets, applying a tiny amount of wax
(at the correct temperature) to amplify the sounds.