Photos: The Cricket Fighter

We were excited and nervous to swing by the home of local champion, Cricket Liu, for the May Games issue of the Beijinger. This old warrior isn’t a board game junkie or a screen whiz down at the local arcade. He fights crickets, and he’s good at it – a local legend in fact.

During our visit, the eccentric fighter cursed at his birds, yelled at his dog and whispered in our ears, revealing top-secret methods for breeding the best crickets. He also showed us the incredible tiny tools he uses to care for them.

Check out photos of the old fighter and his awesome hobby below and read on for an excerpt from the article.

“I’ve been doing this since I was a boy. And let me tell you a secret I discovered,” Liu leans in again to whisper. “I would find my best crickets in graveyards. This was before there was anything outside the Second Ring Road. My friends and I would brave our fears of the dead and go at night. Thorns would scratch deep into our arms as we listened for the crickets. If you heard der der der, then it was a group of crickets. But if you heard bzz bzz bzz, it was a solitary cricket. And that was your fighter! The one who scares the others away, ha ha hargh!”

Read the full version of this article in the May 2013 issue of the Beijinger

Bespoke Beijing runs a hutong tour that swings by Cricket Liu’s house. For details, see Bespoke-beijing.com.

Photos: Mitchell Pe Masilun