In Japan, as the skies clear and the heat builds at the end of July, wherever there are trees, the daylight hours are accompanied by a loud, high-pitched background hiss, urgent and relentless. The constant hot buzz is punctuated by harsh, strident miii miii miiiiiiiis that lasts for several seconds, tone gradually falling before beginning again. This manic scream, this avalanche of sound, is the soundtrack of high summer.
If you didn't know, you would wonder what was making all that noise. There is a story of a 19th century English visitor marveling at a "singing tree" until his hosts explained that it was the sound of cicadas that had crawled out of the ground and up the tree where they sat, filling the day with their ubiquitous whistling and whirring.
The sound of cicadas is towering cumulus clouds. It is sweat running. You can't hear cicadas when you are in an air-conditioned building, and you don't need to because you have turned your back on summer. Still, the din tugs at the hearts of city folk when they go outside and walk past a park or playground or an old grove of trees around a shrine. Or sit in a chilly living room watching a TV drama about summer in the country.
As shadows lengthen and the heat subsides, the miii miiis fall silent, and another cicada comes into play, overlaying the continuing high-pitched hiss with gentle bursts of ululant trilling. This sound is cooling, melodic, refreshing, accompanying you on your way home as evening falls.
I write listening to these sounds, wrestling them into words. Of the reasons I love living in Japan, cicadas top the list. During my years here, they have burrowed their way deep into my heart.
liquid hiss
aural heat