The Beetles
The first time I heard of them, it was Lindsey telling me about a student of hers who kept a giant beetle in his desk and let it crawl all over him during class. Lindsey did her best to keep her composure and conceal her reaction of disgust, worried she may offend the young boy who, for all she knew, could be planning on eating the thing for lunch.
A few nights later, as I returned to my house after dark, I saw one in my driveway. Its body was about two or three inches in length, one inch wide. It was turned upside down, apparently unable to right itself, with its legs wiggling about, in a fashion you might expect from a giant beetle stuck on its back.
On the bus to Chiang Rai last week, a man boarded on the outskirts of Thoeng. He held in his hand a stick, about eight inches in length and two inches in diameter. On this stick were two giant beetles, each with a large horn protruding from its head. With one end tied to the horn and another wrapped around the stick, a string served as a leash of sorts. A beetle leash.
The man sat just two feet away from me, holding the stick between my body and his. I stared out the window of the bus with hurried breath, wishing the man away from me. What kind of person rides public transportation wielding large insect pets?
A seat opened up on the other side of the bus, and the man with the beetles found his way to the vacant bench. My breathing returned to normal.
Thirty kilometers up the road, he got off of the bus at a roadside stand. He happily greeted the shopkeepers as he approached their stand. On the shelves behind the stand, there were various woodworkings. Hanging from the frame of the stand were traditional Thai musical instruments. And next to the main stand stood another smaller framework, suspending a dozen sticks of the same variety carried by the man on the bus. On each stick crawled a giant beetle, apparently for sale.
Later that weekend, I travelled to Chiang Mai. I saw two other stands, same as the first, selling beetles on sticks.
Why would anybody willingly acquire a giant beetle? This desire is as confounding to me as that of housing a pet snake or a pet tarantula–I’ve balked at the idea of visiting certain places solely based on the potential for encountering such creatures.
This past week, my neighbor told me that her brother just got a shipment in from Issan, the northeastern region of Thailand. Four hundred large beetles arrived, and he had begun selling them. The beetles sell for 250 baht each. 250 baht is a large sum of money in rural Thailand. Laborers make between 100 and 200 baht for a day’s work.
The beetles are used for fighting, same as a cockfight or a boxing match. Imagine grown men, crowded around a small ring, yelling and wagering as two horned beetles battle to the death.
September 25th, 2005 at 10:32 am
Yuck. Jamie, when I come, we are going to have to avoid the bugs. Good thing we’ll be able to share a set on the bus. Yuck again.