From Japan with Bugs | The Unexpected Story Behind a Single Postcard
There is a special kind of magic in hearing the thud of mail landing in your postbox. In our world of instant DMs and "seen" receipts, getting a physical piece of mail... something someone actually touched, wrote on and sent across an ocean... feels like a small miracle.
This is why I love Postcrossing.
On November 8th, a small, rectangular miracle arrived from Kobe, Japan. I saw the postmark and the beautiful stamps (more on those later) and got excited. Kobe! The land of legendary beef, scenic mountains and a beautiful port.
I flipped it over, ready to see a picture of Kobe Tower or perhaps the Arima Onsen.
What I saw instead was... bugs.
Specifically, "MINNESOTA HYMENOPTERA, Plate 1."
I laughed out loud. This is the absolute chaotic, wonderful joy of Postcrossing. You never, ever know what you're going to get.
The Sender, The City and The Crime Novel
Let's look at the (human) side of the card first. The message was from a lovely Postcrosser named Midori.
"Greetings from Japan. My name is Midori. I live in Kobe, a beautiful port city. I love to travel and read crime/detective novels. I hope your mailbox brings you many smiles 🙂 Best Wishes, Midori."
Midori, you have no idea. This card didn't just bring a smile; it sent me down an internet rabbit hole that crossed three continents.
My first thought was: Midori loves crime novels. Is this a clue?
So, let's get this straight.
The Victim: Me (of curiosity).
The Location: Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The Sender: Midori from Kobe, Japan.
The Evidence: A postcard of insects... from Minnesota, USA.
This postcard has traveled more than I have in the last two years. This wasn't just mail; it was a mystery.
The "H" Word: What is Hymenoptera?
My first clue was the title: "Hymenoptera."
It sounds like something a doctor would diagnose you with. But a quick Google search told me it's the scientific order for a massive group of insects. We're talking over 150,000 species, including wasps, bees and ants.
The name basically means "membrane-winged."
The insects on my card weren't the cute, fuzzy, "save the bees" variety. No, these were their cousins. The ones with sharp suits, tiny waists and a bad reputation. These were wasps.
We all know them. They are the "bad boys" of the insect world. The ones that show up to your picnic uninvited, buzz menacingly around your 100-Plus and carry a concealed weapon.
But here’s the plot twist... one worthy of Midori’s detective novels... wasps are the good guys.
We’ve just been giving them terrible PR for centuries.
Why They're Secretly Superheroes
This postcard from Minnesota forced me to ask: what do these guys actually do?
They are nature's pest control.
To keep everything else in balance.
In the most sci-fi/horror way possible. :D
Most wasps are "parasitoids". Unlike a parasite (which just lives off its host), a parasitoid's life cycle always ends in the host's death.
A mother wasp will find a juicy caterpillar, a crop-munching aphid or even a spider. She'll use her stinger not to attack you, but to inject her eggs inside the living host. The wasp larvae then hatch and... well, they eat their way out.
It's brutal. It's graphic. And it's one of the most important ecosystem services on the planet.
Without wasps, the world would be overrun by the very insects that destroy our crops. They are a free, all-natural, highly efficient pest control army that protects our food supply.
And that's not all.
You know how we’re all worried about bees? While bees are the star pollinators, wasps are the hard-working extras. They don't have fuzzy bodies to trap pollen, but as they fly from flower to flower drinking nectar, they transfer pollen, too.
In fact, some plants, like figs, are entirely dependent on a specific type of fig wasp to pollinate them. No fig wasps, no figs. No figs, no nasi lemak with sambal tumis buah tin (okay, maybe I made that last one up). :D
So, these insects from Minnesota are not villains. They are critical, under-appreciated guardians of the environment.
The Second Clue | The Beetle on the Stamp
The mystery didn't end with the wasps. I looked closer at the envelope. Midori, being an excellent Postcrosser, had used beautiful stamps.
One stamp was a 40 Yen geometric pattern. But the other... the 60 Yen one... was a magnificent Stag Beetle.
This wasn't just any beetle. A quick search identified it as Dorcus hopei (or Ookuwagata in Japanese).
And this is where the cultural connection gets really cool.
In Japan, stag beetles aren't just bugs; they are pets. They are celebrities. There is a massive subculture around raising and collecting them. Kids hunt for them in the summer. Department stores sell them. There are even arcade games based on them (I'm looking at you, Mushiking).
A single rare beetle can sell for thousands of dollars.
This stamp wasn't just a random insect. It was a tiny window into a huge part of modern Japanese culture.
The Case Solved | It All Comes Back to Malaysia
So, what have we learned?
A card from Japan...
...showed me wasps from Minnesota...
...which taught me about pest control and pollination...
...and the Japanese stamp taught me about beetle-collecting culture.
This whole time, I was looking at Japan and America and the postcard was pointing a big, six-legged finger right back at Malaysia.
We live in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. We don't just have these insects; we have the "limited edition, collector's version" of them.
The Belum-Temenggor Forest Complex and the jungles of Borneo are world-famous for their insects.
Midori's Dorcus hopei beetle? It's impressive. But the stag beetles in Borneo, like the Cyclommatus elaphus, can have mandibles (jaws) almost as long as their entire bodies. They are giants.
Those "scary" wasps from Minnesota? Malaysia is home to the Tarantula Hawk... a massive, metallic-blue wasp that, yes, hunts tarantulas. We also have giant honey bees and countless species of wasps that are vital to the health of our rainforests.
Our jungles are full of this "Hymenoptera" family, all working 24/7. They are pollinating our tropical flowers, controlling insect populations, and forming the base of a food web that supports the birds, monkeys and tigers that Belum and Borneo are famous for.
We have the real-life versions of these "fantasy" creatures right here and they are doing the hard work of keeping our jungles alive.
The Final Verdict
This postcard is one of the best I've ever received.
It started as a funny "why bugs?" moment. It became a detective story written by Midori.
It connected a port city in Japan, a state in the US and the deep rainforests of my own country. It was a reminder that every little creature, even the one you're tempted to swat, has a vital job.
So, thank you, Midori from Kobe. You hoped your card would bring a smile. It did. And it also brought a newfound respect for the creepy, crawly and absolutely critical world of insects.
(Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go outside and see if I can find a wasp... and maybe thank it from a very, very safe distance.) :D
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