Today I spent a very interesting and rewarding morning with Professor Ai-Ping Liang, Vice Chair of the Division of Systematic & Evolutionary Zoology at the Institute of Zoology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He kindly agreed to listen to my recordings and identify the insects singing. There were mainly instances of the common Beijing cicadas, ie Cryptotympana Atrata [Hei Za Chan in pinyin – noisy black cicada] and Platypleura Kaempferi [Hui Gu – dedicated cicada]. Ai-Ping emphasised that these were his rough translations of the Chinese. He is not entirely sure about the crickets, and his colleague, a cricket specialist, Liu Chun Xiang is currently on a field trip so he suggested returning soon to meet her. He also suggested returning to look at the insect collection they have on campus – I am interested in high resolution images of these insects as well. Ai-Ping mentioned MS Moulds, the Australian expert on cicadas, whose book I own and refer to frequently.
Ai-Ping offered to take me to lunch, which was very good, and then to take me to the Bird’s Nest and Ice Cube [or is it the Water Cube – anyway the Olympic stadiums]. I had asked about them as I knew the Institute of Zoology was fairly nearby. It is not easy access to the Olympic Park at the moment as it is basically a building site, but Ai-Ping talked to the guard on duty and in we went. Quite amazing to see these buildings, and pretty close up too. They look quite astounding and are a great feat of engineering and design, great. Again, the workers live on site amongst the heat and dust – though not in tents here but pre-fab units.
