Like the baseball calendar in the U.S., China's cricket-fighting season is getting longer and longer. Purists fret that the pastime is being threatened by a money culture.
Helping lead the effort to upend thousands of years of Chinese tradition is Xu Moxiao, a man determined to lengthen the customary autumn fighting season. He thinks year-round bug fights are better for fans and for the people who make money off the sport.
'What I'm doing is trying to expand the good things,' says Mr. Xu.
Cricket fighting has long followed the rhythms of nature. Around late summer, the inch-long blackish-brown insects are plucked out of farm fields and sold as cheap entertainment. Spectators gather to watch heated matches in which two crickets battle it out, gladiator style, until one turns tail and runs.
During the fall in big cities like Shanghai, pet markets are crowded with cricket enthusiasts. They huddle over suppliers from the countryside, haggling as they lift lids on soup-can-size cylinders to inspect each occupant's legs and jaws. Crickets from Shandong province in the northeast are most prized, especially those of the Velarifictorus micado species. Sometimes after the deals are done, buyers hustle outside for a pickup fight.
Traditionalists put their clay cricket pots into storage in the chilly months. 'The 'autumn pastime' is an ancient legacy,' says Li Jinhua, co-organizer of traditional-style cricket fights sanctioned by the government of the eastern city of Hangzhou. 'Just three months. There is no better time to play with crickets than the three prime autumn months.'
But for a new species of cricket breeder, there may be money to be made by staging fights year round. Betting on crickets is illegal but widespread in China. And the stakes are rising. Historically, bets were settled with a moon cake or a rival's insect. The size of today's wagers can be gleaned from price tags for the toughest crickets, known as 'generals,' which can sell for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.
As stakes rise, gamblers are demanding an edge. Enter the bai chong, or 'white bug,' that is raised in captivity on hormones and muscle-building regimens.
Mr. Xu, who grew up in Shanghai in the 1980s, has fond memories of the crickets he bought for the equivalent of a few pennies. He hopes his 2-year-old son will adopt the hobby he took up from his own father.
This year, the 28-year-old trained lawyer walked away from a career selling bathroom fixtures to raise crickets. In a modified strip of offices in northern Shanghai, tens of thousands of Mr. Xu's bugs are mating and molting in plastic-foam boxes. In his attempts to replicate the 15-day breeding cycle all year long, Mr. Xu keeps the humidified offices heated to 96 degrees Fahrenheit. 'Without gambling, there wouldn't be this industry,' he says.
The danger of pushing the limits today is a government backlash. Cricket fighting is banned in Hong Kong. And cultural bureaus in cities like Shanghai and Hangzhou are moving to regulate it. To challenge the gambling dens, the bureaus are encouraging matches where bai chong and betting are unwelcome.
Cricket breeding is a risky business for another reason: In just a day this year, a mystery ailment killed a generation of 18,000 of Mr. Xu's crickets. To combat disease, Mr. Xu bought a refrigerator-size machine to sterilize food bowls, and he put his crickets on a diet that includes dried maggots, in the belief that flies don't get viruses. He says his methods can double a bug's strength without affecting its size or appearance.
In October, he made a 10,000-bug sale into Shanghai's main market, where they sell retail for as little as $1.50 each.
To some traditional cricket masters, Mr. Xu and others breed super-bugs just to cater to gamblers. Mr. Xu readily agrees his methods are 'completely counter to the natural process.' But he draws a distinction between his 'technology' and methods like drugging bugs or inserting tiny metal spears into their jaws -- the insect equivalent of a razor blade in a boxing glove. He says traditional cricket habitats like Shandong are under threat from urbanization and pesticides, while the short fighting season drives cricket prices up to levels unaffordable to young fans.
Pricing his bugs at about a tenth of the going rate for true Shandong crickets, he doubts anyone knows the difference, or cares. He shows off a text message stored on his cellphone from an ecstatic customer: wins in 11 of 12 matches.
In the 1950s and 1960s, cricket fighting was branded 'old culture' and outlawed along with amusements like mahjong. But today, Chinese enjoy more economic security and less government control, and are increasingly reaching into the past for leisure pursuits. It is 'a culture of China, like the tea culture,' says Li Shijun, a 70-year-old Shanghai expert.
Fighting crickets don't live much longer than 100 days, which has limited the season to fall. A Chinese term for cricket fighting, qiu xing, roughly translates as 'autumn enjoyment,' and the ancient Chinese character for autumn is a pictogram of a cricket.
Ritual guides cricket fights. Bugs are sequestered for a day to avoid prefight tampering. The fighters are paired at a weigh-in, complicated by the fact that contenders never tip the scales at more than a gram.
In the blue corner in one recent match, Zhang Jiangen slowly slid the top off a round clay canister to ready a Shandong cricket for his bout. Pinching bamboo tweezers, Mr. Zhang gently removed a dish just large enough for the cricket's lightly nibbled meal: a single grain of rice.
Next, Mr. Zhang used a piece of hay to delicately guide the cricket into a bamboo tube, which he then employed to lift it into the plastic arena.
Studying close-ups on closed-circuit television, spectators sized the bug up against the thick legs, straight antennae and large jaws of its opponent. By flicking its antennae with a bristle of hay, Mr. Zhang sent his cricket into a jabbing, biting fury.
To signal their readiness to fight, the adversaries -- always males -- grind wings to produce the familiar chirp, a sound that gives the cricket its Chinese name, 'qu qu,' which is pronounced choo-choo.
When a piece of plastic separating the opponents is finally lifted, the miniature gladiators clash.
Fangs rapidly and repeatedly clench fangs, legs and heads. Crickets lose limbs and get tossed, professional-wrestling style, across the arena.
After several rounds, each lasting a minute or two, Mr. Zhang's bug was defeated, as ruled by the referee's decision.
The fights are vicious but rarely deadly. One cricket usually gives up and runs away -- or vaults out of the arena. The loser often gets flung into the street by his displeased owner.