A short story about a demon, in a modernising Japan, living in electric wires and starting fires

Question

I read this Fantasy short story (or maybe novelette ?) about 20 years ago, in a collection which might have been older.

It takes place in Japan, in the throes of modernising, so I suppose, in the late 19th, or very early 20th, century. I don't remember much, except that there is one demon (or maybe several ?) who lives on electric wires. Whether these are wires transporting electrical power, or just telegraph wires, I don't remember. Probably the latter, so early in time. Anyway this demon (or these demons) have the rather unpleasant tendency to start fires, which does not contribute to making the general japanese population very enthusiast about modernisation.

Answer 1

"Flowers of Edo" by Bruce Sterling, reviewed here; it was first published in Asimovs May 1987

Modernizing Japan

I love how quickly Sterling conjures up an atmosphere of nineteenth-century Japan; you feel like you’re standing in the streets of Edo in just four short paragraphs. Politics and mood are deftly woven in when the protagonists walk from the old, dye-smelling streets into the red brick, Western-built part of the city.

Demon and Fire

All this, a demon and a big fire. You can’t go wrong

This Goodreads review has more details on the story, that further confirm that it's the right one:

What really tripped me up was when the "demon" emerges from the telegraph lines, which were referred to as harboring evil spirits by suspicious townspeople. At first I thought this was meant to be a superstition, but Onogawa ends up actually fighting the demon -- or does he? His account definitely seems a little unreliable as he was fighting and chasing it while drunk. But then, the train station the demon runs to physically goes up in flames, another "flower of Edo" in bloom. I almost think the demon is not just meant as a physical manifestation. It might also be symbolic of how foreign contact was taking over Edo (and the rest of Japan) in other negative ways.