Crab House. CRAB HOUSE!!!
If you need a break, here's me yelling about Crab House and my newest son, the Mitten Crab.
Everything’s on fire and the world is shitty right now, and we are all exhausted and burnt out from doing the work (hopefully you are) that needs to be done to fight back against racialized police brutality and systemic racism. I’ll be putting up a post here on the subject later this week, but in the meantime, I offer you a gift, a breath, a moment of reprieve from the necessary work of resistance to take in the glory and perfection that is….Crab House.
Look at this. Look at this and the international implications it has. Gaze upon it and be refreshed and new. It’s the Ecology Center at Yangcheng Lake in Jiangsu Province, China, and it means absolutely everything to me. It’s just….it’s just perfect. Nothing’s ever been as good as this. Can you guess what the Ecology Center, or as I will be calling it throughout the rest of this post, Crab House, is dedicated to? That’s right, crab.
Apparently, Yangcheng Lake is well-known for being home to a crab called Eriocheir sinensis, or as it’s commonly called, the “Chinese mitten crab”. Why is it called the mitten crab, you ask? Because it has FUZZY!! LITTLE!! CLAWS!! THAT LOOK!! LIKE!! MITTENS!! (Sorry for yelling this is just incredibly exciting and I’m freaking out).
I honestly can’t handle it. I look at him and my brain floods with endorphins. I’ve never felt joy like the joy I’m feeling in this moment.
You may be wondering why someone would build an entire building in the shape of a crab to honor and celebrate one specific species of crab. I can’t relate, because like, look at him. It should be obvious. He’s perfect and obviously a holy creature and should be revered and celebrated, but I guess I’ll give you context if you need it. Throughout China, mitten crabs are regarded as a delicacy for their sweet meat and roe, and every year during mid-autumn, fresh crabs are harvested and shipped to dining tables across the country. Given their prized status, they’ve become somewhat of a local icon at Yangcheng Lake, so much so that tens of thousands gather there every year during peak season.
You can imagine how disappointed I was to find out that Crab House was built as an attraction to celebrate a local cuisine, and not erected as a shrine so that people may gather in awe and humility at this good and obviously god-like boy, but whatever. To each their own. And I like to think they do both. Humans are complicated and nuanced creatures and we can hold two truths in our minds at once.
Anyways, let’s talk about my son. My furry undersea son Mittens. More specifically, let’s talk about Mittens’ mittens. The fuzzy hair-like protrusions covering on the mitten crab’s claws are actually not “hair” in the way we know it, but rather are an extension of the crab’s exoskeleton called setae. Setae come in many forms and serve a wide range of purposes in crustaceans, from feeding to grooming to helping scoop water into their mouths for molting, and though it’s not clear quite what's the primary purpose is for the mitten crab’s setal mats (the formal name for their cute lil claw fur), they could be used for all of the above, though some studies posit that they might be used either to help these little guys burrow (they love to dig) or to host microorganisms for feeding. I honestly don’t need to know why my son wears mittens. All I care about is that he’s happy with whatever he wears. I support his choices unconditionally.
Another fun fact about my son Mittens, he’s wanted by the law.
This is a real sign I promise I did not make this up. First of all, I want to say I hate this sign, and, as it’s targeting my son in particular, it causes me extreme distress. Second I want to say that my son is a renegade and I’m proud of him for that.
Apparently mitten crabs are “invasive”, which I think is a loaded term and my son can go wherever he pleases, but apparently it’s a “problem”. Some researchers have even gone so far as to dub my son one of the “world’s most notorious aquatic invasive species”, which is rude if you ask me. Though they’re native to coastal waters in East Asia ranging from northern Korea to southern China, the mitten crab’s unique adaptability to both fresh- and saltwater has made it possible for them to spread globally, and most “disruptively” to North America and Europe, where they allegedly drastically alter local ecosystems and food chains; interfere with fish salvage operations, water treatment plants, and power plants; and can cause bank erosion and increase flooding risk with their digging.
Look, sure, that’s bad. I get it. But my son’s a rolling stone, okay? He goes where he wants and does what he wants. I don’t tell him what to do, he’s his own person. He’s a hungry boy! He’s a hungry boy who likes to dig with his little mittens! Who can say no to that? I mean, apparently the United States Fish and Wildlife Service can, given that they’ve determined that mitten crabs are such a threat to U.S. ecosystems that they have—and this is not a joke—just this past month launched “Operation Hidden Mitten” to try and stop the illegal smuggling of mitten crabs into the U.S.
I mean, fine. I GUESS I understand. Dramatic much, but the conservationist in me gets why this is a problem. But the mother to a crab son in me is like, blame industrialization and ballast water discharge from ships and its negative effects on marine environments across the globe. My boy is just trying to swim free and dig hard, it’s not his fault.
But I will leave conservation to the actual conservationists and focus on what I know, and what I know is that we need to build more buildings in the shape of crabs. I just feel like that’s the answer. I don’t know what it’s the answer to, but it’s definitely the answer to something. Crabs need to be celebrated. Especially this specific crab, who is my son and who I gave birth to. Also, I feel like Crab House just makes things better. At least it makes me feel better. I hope it makes you feel better too. I hope the simple knowledge of the existence of Crab House makes you feel good. Remember, when in doubt: Crab House. When things get rough: Crab House. Feeling unsure? Crab House. Long live Crab House.
This is so freaking cute oh my god.