Comments by "Jordan, inside-outsider in Japan" (@Jordan-inJapan) on "Japanese street gutters are NOT this clean" video.

In rural Japan (at least where I live) the “mizo”, or irrigation-runoff canals are a central part of life for a lot of people. Well, the rice farmers most of all — they clean them out a couple of times a year, constantly adjust water levels, etc — but the surrounding community as well. We feel a kind of responsibility to keep them clean and sometimes report and even remove invasive species that can harm the rice crop. And on hot days kids play in them, and even catch fish and crayfish for fun. (The Cray fish are an invasive specie too, but they don’t hurt the rice so we let them be.😆) In spite of the small amount of upkeep we have to do, I love having the mizo canal next to our house. Except that every time we have heavy rain and it threatens to overflow into our yard & house. That part’s kind of scary. ⛈
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@Automedon2 I’ve never seen anything like that where I live, but it sounds really cool.
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@xueyang5967 Not trying to be disrespectful… 😂
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@davidarundel6187 They’re not considered “food grade”, so they’re almost never eaten in Japan. (Well, the crows love them. But as for humans, it’s basically just kids catching them for fun.)
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@sophritoh Well, I don’t know if it’s any consolation, but the kids here generally catch them (crayfish, and also several kinds of large insects) to keep at ‘pets’. You can buy these portable aquarium-boxes and a favorite summer activity is going out hunting for something to put in it. They do their best to make a suitable habitat and keep their captives fed and ‘happy’. From the kids’ point of view at least, it is ‘nurturing’. And I guess they learn a lot in the process.
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@ytrbsa Much more interesting than I had expected. 😂 But I learned something new! And by the way, are you a Ghibli animation fan? I just uploaded a video about their new theme park, if anyone here is interested.
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