Chinese homes are normally quite secure places that do not suffer greatly from uninvited guests. For instance, of the few regular visitors there are often what I call geckos – small lizards that are beige in colour and about 5 inches long of which half that is the thin tail.

They are common all over Guangdong and Chinese people say that they bring Good Luck. When you understand Chinese culture a little better, what they are actually intimating is that they bring no harm, are totally scared of you, and eat of lot of nasty things.

Last year I had one living in my office, which would scurry around in the hopes I would not see it. This year we appear to have two of them living in our bedroom, and I think they are really cool and cute! Last week I saw one make its way down behind the bedroom door and when I was free I stopped to peer at it. I was trying to leave it the message that it was safe here and we would not harm it. However, when I returned the door back to its always open state it ran for its life – so I guess this will be a long job.

This couple of geckos are only the first representatives of many uninvited guests we have endured this year, the rest of them being mainly of a far more unwelcome nature:

Like many other Chinese expressions, ‘Dan Fong’ is a collective meaning derived from two other words that at first sight appear to be unrelated. This is of course a Cantonese expression, and I have absolutely no idea if there is a Mandarin equivalent, as the beasts in question may not exist in colder climes.

‘Fong’ is easy to interpolate, meaning ‘wind’, or perhaps as in this case, ‘air’. Typhoon in Cantonese is ‘Dai Fong’ or Great Wind – Cantonese people swapping the ‘T’ for their natural ‘D’ pronunciation. ‘Dan’ is a lot more complicated, being a Cantonese word that is used in only specific circumstances, and always related to another word. Therefore ‘Dan Chair’ means bicycle, whereas ‘Mai Dan’ means The Bill. Being personally very aware of the threat that ‘Dan Fong’ represent to me personally, I have come to interpret ‘Dan’ as meaning something that does a person harm, or perhaps represents a personal hazard or hardship.

Chinese; whether it is Cantonese or Mandarin - remains a conceptual language, not a logical one.

However, forgive me if I begin this tale by travelling back in time two weeks, and to an evening where we were beset by an invasion of mosquitoes. Now normally, we get a mosquito in our Toisan (Tai Shan City) home about twice a week. The ones that bite are always female, and it is a part of the nipper’s reproductive cycle. They like ‘O’ blood the best, and whilst the British health service still seeks to shroud my blood group in total secrecy, I know that my blood tastes better to a female mosquito than my wife's does … simply because the bitches always pick on me first!

However, I do operate a Zero Tolerance policy with the twat's, and so none of them ever live long enough to breed : -)

My last missive touched upon a heat-wave we had been experiencing, but this became tempered by unseasonable and monsoon storms heading up from the South China Sea. This brought the mossies indoors and they delighted for several hours in eating us to pieces. I killed an unprecedented eleven that evening, before my wife got the last one – as it was injecting my leg as I slept.

Moral of this part – never doubt your wife when she hits you; and know she has your best interests at heart!

Having repressed the mosquito uprising I was not quite expecting to find mouse/rat droppings in our living room the next morning. Chinese people do not distinguish between rats and mice; nor between sheep and goats for that matter either ... Durrrh?

This is where you cross cultural boundaries of perception, but anyway's; I had a Chinese ‘rat-mouse’ in Foshan, which was like a small and brown mouse that had the physiology of a baby rat. It seemed to live outside the kitchen window … which was on the 26th floor. Ho-Hum!

The rat or mouse seemed to come and go over days of time, and it was our daughter Rhiannon (18 months) that caught the parent and child one day as they casually wandered in through our front door. She cried ‘Mama!” and pointed to the critters, who caught - made a very sharp exit.

However, with another cyclone hitting The Philippines, it was the invasion of the Cockroaches that I reacted to with temerity. They have also earned the respect of Zero Tolerance by yours truly, and whatever it is about them, I really cannot stand it. I would let them live outside, but once in my home there is only one answer … splat!

I am probably the only person in the whole of China that kills cockroaches, and I have learnt all their ways and all their habits. Do you know that if you strike them with a wounding but not fatal blow, they will play dead (Lifeless and upside down); and then disappear once your attention is distracted?

They are also immune to very high doses of atomic radiation, and have this ‘twitchy’ thing going for them that I really detest. I kill them, and killed dozens over the next few days until they finally seemed to get the message and stopped bothering me.

At last I thought I was free of pests, but then The Ants tried to take over my kitchen! Now, Chinese ants are not really a problem, they are simply an annoyance. They are very easy to kill, and are very small to boot. Having been invaded by ants in UK several times I know how to deal with them, but these things are just bothersome; not invasive.

They also appear to like eating cockroaches – or at least the dead one I hadn't bothered to collect and throw out of the window. It was completely gone inside 24-hours, nibble by nibble! I just watched it disappear as the industrious insects used it to feed their progeny. Then I sprayed the nest and they were also history!

I endured a few ‘bugs’ after that – sort of tree beetle kind of things. They made a lot of noise, but were actually dying as they came and went; so I didn't bother very much about them. The next things to catch my attention were the centipedes. Now UK has centipedes and they tend to be small and orange, and live in the earth. So imagine my surprise one morning when bleary eyed I went to make my first coffee of the day, and found a black, 6-inch long one gallivanting across to the fridge!

Siu Ying trapped it with hysterics as I went to get the splatter and eventually this was cordially dispatched to ‘insect with far too many legs’ heaven. I got two more that day – both in my office, and one as it tried to inspect my feet! Sacre Bleu!

Then I decided to take a moment and leaned to look out of my office window. There fluttering around the roof next door was a most remarkable butterfly. It was really large – larger than a UK ‘Peacock’, but white with loads of orange like an orange-white, but on the upper wings. I marvelled at it for a while before noticing a bright red Damsel Fly sunning itself on the neighbours rooftop clothesline. Some insects are really beautiful and do a lot of good. With this I returned to my desk and carried on with my work in a very nice frame of mind.

That night I worked late before hunger struck and I decided to cook a really big meal: Pork steaks with eggs and a ton of chips. For those of you that either do not know me well, or think I may be slightly ‘odd’? Well, I tend to only eat once each day, and this is a very big meal that will send me to sleep immediately. When I was doing heavy manual labour as a Chippy (Carpenter) for exhibitions I used to enjoy the 10 am breakfast – especially: Bacon, sausage and runny-egg butties at the NEC. They were one of the world’s culinary wonders for hungry men – but only available to contractors; not the general public.

What sealed this for me as one of the world’s greatest foods was that after buttering the toast with real butter, they sat it in a galley steamer to keep warm, and the whole mixture simply tasted like heaven! Perhaps I should do a new section related to my personal Top Ten Meals ever – the results would probably never appear in a Michelin Guide or Egon Ronay publication; but would include some Chinese dishes as cooked in China.

Anyway, I went to bed and had a bat flying around the room for a while, before she decided to make a perch on the cupboard near the ceiling; and very adjacent to my head. Siu Ying came in and seeing the bat, stated that I was very honoured and lucky. I thought nothing of this and went to sleep.

The next morning I ambled through to the sitting room, thinking to have a long drink of cold water before attempting a coffee. I was surprised to see that being certain I had left half a dozen chips from the night before, my plate was now empty! WTF!

I found bits of them on the floor, along with Chinese mouse/rat droppings, and a trail leading to the door. I haven't even seen these things yet, and they think it their right to eat my left-over food? Obviously the culprits are long-gone, so I meander into the kitchen thinking to try and make a coffee - and find a cockroach eating the potatoe peelings. This has definitely gone too far, so I bop it on the head, then mutilate it, and toss what's left of it out of the window. Job Done!

Mind you, I can understand why Chinese vermin and bugs prefer potatoes, as they have this thing going with rice – or didn't you know? The one thing that I really don't get along with is Chinese rice as cooked in China. It is cooked in rice cookers with absolutely the minimum amount of water, so the grains are still the same size as when they started out, but completely edible. You may presume this is ideal?

My wife thinks I am totally crazy, but after washing I throw the rice I am to cook into a saucepan with enough water to cover my nail; add a little salt and a knob of butter, and cook it until done … and twice the original size! Note that any remnants left in the saucepan overnight will again double in size once left to soak = four times larger than ’cooked’ Chinese rice.

I normally eat rice with Indian curry – unheard of in China, which has a lot of gravy and juice. Chinese people tend to eat their rice as a separate bowl with no gravy, so what will happen?

Well, you are going to feel hungry again a few hours later that's what. The rice will absorb all the fluids in your stomach and expand, bloating you into thinking you are replete – when all that has really happened is that the rice has grown and will disappear just as quickly. Perhaps this is why Chinese eat a lot of rice, and eat five times per day?

But leaving this behind; the next couple of days pass without anything to write home about. I killed the usual couple of cockroaches each day, and fried mossies with my Chinese electronic mossie bat whenever they appeared to eat me. I also got two more of the gigantic centipedes, both in my office (?) and admired a very large moth one night that settled on the ceiling above my computer.

I was working fine until 4 am (I am not very good with ‘time’), when a very large wasp flew in through the window and decided it really like my strip light. I fled and watched it from the doorway for some time, trying to determine exactly what it was. Ok, it was almost 2-inches long and had very large and orange composite eyes. I really did not like the black body with three orange stripes, one of which was extremely prominent on its abdomen.

I switched the fluorescent tube off and went next door (Sitting room) to consider, as this thing rang a bell with me. Then I remembered going to a farm in the middle of absolutely nowhere, about 30 miles from where we now live and north of Hoipeng (Kai Ping) city. The thing is the locals were marvelling at a local honey concoction that was probably also 80% proof. It was decanted from these same critters – I was sure of it.

My problem was that one of the owner’s son stated very openly that he lost a younger brother because he was stung by one of these wasps – and then he stood back from us for a moment seeking a personal moment (For his tears). Perhaps now you will appreciate my concern!

This thing simply stayed there on my strip-light for a couple of hours, and then as dawn approached, decided to fly around the living room. I was not impressed, but this did enable me to return to my office and collect my mossie bat and cockroach swatter. It then took up residence under the table lamp at the entrance to my office – so I closed the door on it. It was gone a few hours later.

Understand I was still not sure exactly what it was, what threat it possessed, and how it operated = how to kill it. When Siu Ying got home I tried to tell her about it, and all she would say was “No say me!” before becoming deliberately engrossed in the TV. We went to bed later with me in an uncomfortable frame of mind.

Over the next few days I noticed one of these was always hanging around outside our southern window – the one Nonni loves to sit on the sill and look out on the main street below. I decided it was not a good place for her to be, and despite her protestations, removed her. I think this Dan Fong was a female and trying to attract a male to build a new hive with. The reason I say this was she was not aggressive and spent a lot of time resting. However she did attract larger specimens that zoomed about all around the room, and never rested – leading me to suppose these were the males.

Over the next few days this female became more active in her attractions, and started to take over our main balcony and that area of the living room. I simply could not get near her to finish her – knowing that they might mass on me if I missed and swarm to her protection.

On the forth night I was tapping away with a great piece of writing near the climax of my second book, when movement indicated the 4 am arrival of the Dan Fong. I fled out of the chair almost knocking it over and grabbed my trusty bats. In those few seconds 14 of them had arrived in my office and more were on the way in!

I screamed for Siu Ying and leapt to close both windows before any more arrived. We then sealed down the entire house to stop the invasion. I still did not understand how to kill them, for whilst I had good shots at one – having several more a few inches away was not a good thing I reasoned.

Siu Ying grabbed the electronic mossie bat and was straight in there – and then I realised that if you touched them with the bat they sort of stuck to it … and most importantly – the others did not seem to mind. She got 8 of them on her first try, of which one was on the other side. I teased them off and splattered them with the cockroach bat, finding only 7 bodies = meaning one had flown off!

I was definitely expecting a war zone, but they seemed content to hang around the strip-light in their madness as my wife picked them off two at a time. That night we killed them all, and over the next couple of days doubled this figure as they were definitely thinking of forming a new hive in our home. Not good!

This time coincided with a change in the weather where we moved back to daily temperatures in the high 30’s. It was simply impossible to keep all the windows and doors closed, so we learnt to take our chances. Rhiannon had already been despatched to stay with Siu Ying's mother until the crisis was over.

My office was extremely hot and smoky, so at length I had to open the window for some fresh air, and thinking of nothing in particular – except for Elves and Dwarves fighting Ogres; I gazed out over our neighbour’s roof … and then I saw it!

The next but one building is at our height and I looked straight across to the corresponding window with mounting dread. The typical wasp’s nest was sandy in colour and about 2 feet long by 10 inches wide, and had encompassed the security bars, making it over 6 inches deep. The air around was black with Dan Fong, who numbered in the thousands!

Siu Ying was out this afternoon, but came home to my call. She thought I was being stupid when I dragged her into my office and opened the window. Then she saw it and fled in a panic! Now, my wife would not normally have any dealings with the Police – but she was straight on the telephone and within 30 minutes a guy from CID was knocking on our door.

My wife brought him into my office where he gazed out of the window trying to appear relaxed. They were in animated conversation all the same, and in the local Toisanwah language, which I don't quite get yet. I offered him one of my (Illegal to buy) cigarettes, which he accepted with gratitude and thereafter started speaking in Cantonese so I could follow some of it. He stayed for another ten minutes before they both went off to speak to the adjacent property's owner.

Some hours later Siu Ying came back with a progress report, saying the owner was a really nice guy and had no idea because their internal drapes completely covered the nest. It turns out he runs a visa operation for a Guangzhou company, which also has a second office in Toisan. It appears he can fix her up with a UK visa – Toisan being one of the very few places in China where this is comparatively easy – perhaps because ¾ of Toisanese live in the west.

The next day I noticed there was a lot more activity with the Dan Fong around our living room window, she having acquired several suitors it seemed. I did not like this so went to my office and shut the door. Later I noticed the nest had disappeared overnight, and was delighted – although being mindful that perhaps not all the blighters had been accounted for. This would explain the increased activity at our living room window for sure.

My wife came back for lunch and together we managed to get rid of several Dan Fong, but not the female who was always elusive. I then showed her the hive was gone. She called the guy directly, and then disappeared immediately to investigate. The upshot was that a friend had come round to remove them wearing a fully protective body suit and using some smoke and a net. He had succeeded, but in their wrath some had got into the home and one had stung the owner on his cheek. Siu Ying told me later that the whole of his cheek had erupted and was greatly swollen. He had spent the night in hospital, but would recover in about 5-days. In the meantime he would have to carry-on as best he could, suffering a closed eyes and being unable to eat at all until the swelling reduced.

2-days later I actually got the female that was hovering around our sitting room window. She had been showing a new suitor around and rested whilst he zoomed around in ominous fashion. Then he left and she was perched on an internal upright of the aluminium window frame, and I zapped her! Hurrah!!!

For interest, I beat her with the cockroach bat and she became four distinct pieces: a head; a thorax, a venom sack; and a sting. The latter was measure at 5/8 ths of an inch long – and this was across the 90 degree hooked curve. I guess it was an inch long if straightened out!

After that we never had a single one come into the house, although over the period we must have killed well in excess of 100 between us.

Looking back with added information, this was not a deadly threat, and they turned out to be fairly simple to kill, helped by their usually non-aggressive nature. However the threat they possess is similar in many respects to that of a British Adder – a snake of the Viper family that is Britain's only deadly snake (The very few smooth snakes excepted).

For readers who do not know this snake, then it is around 3 feet long and is usually not fatal to a healthy adult. That stated, a bite will land you in hospital and recovery is a painful business lasting for up to one week. Each year in UK a few adults die from the bite of this snake, which would be a lot more deadly regards children and older people who fortunately are highly unlikely to come into contact with it. That stated, one of my father's dogs – a very large and manly Alsatian cross, was once bitten buy this snake, and the vet (Jim Mundel) held out little hope in spite of his size and his best care. Five days later he recovered, but it was very ‘touch and go’.

The Dan Fong represents a very real and similar threat in Canton. Whilst the similarities are great, there remains one distinct difference – annoyed wasps will strike as a swarm!

Now I am quite sure that both my wife and I (Just like the guy across the rooftops) would have had a rough time if stung, but would have recovered within a week; even if we received a couple of stings. I know our daughter could not withstand one single strike!

And so our days returned to normal, although they did continue to provide unexpected ‘amusements’. One of these was a large spider that I caught coming in seeking protection from the next Dai Fong (Typhoon). Its body was 2-inches round, with legs about 3 more inches each around that. I had one when I lived on the island, and soon splattered it. Most Chinese spiders are very small and quite cute – in a spider sort of way.

Most house spiders are about one quarter of an inch diameter (Total size), jump, and are petrified of human beamishes. However there is also the Chinese very big spider, which we have mainly in the countryside. Its body is a bulbous green, and about 5-inches long + the enormous legs. Fortunately I have only ever seen one from the other side of a pane of glass in the deepest rural countryside.

Otherwise I am now back to killing Mosquitoes and cockroaches with gay abandon (Olden use of that word, please!). However you would be presumptuous to think that everything remained normal at Chateau Jonno. My day is just as likely to be: ‘going to bed at 4 pm’, as it is as ‘waking up at 4 pm’. Being still a few days after I killed the last female of the Dan Fong, I would wander around the house always accompanied by the appropriate bat in my right hand and the other in my left – ready to swap instantly as required.

On the morning in question I arose at 3.30 am and had a long drink of cold water. I then made a coffee and set about waking up properly before starting work. Everything was proceeding normally when I just happened to notice a movement and reacted instantly. Flinging the seat back I just managed to get my left foot out of my flip-flop as it became the personal property of a very large and feisty green crab!

As I watched the monster in my office, I wondered why out of our one dozen rooms – why it had decided to come into my office, with the obvious intention of removing my toes! Fortunately it had lost one of its claws somewhere, but the largest one was still attached and chasing after my feet with alacrity in search of nourishment.

Perhaps I should explain: The guy that delivers my beer and cigarettes has parents who go to the sea and catch crabs to sell in the city markets. Siu Ying had come back the previous day with a hand-made wicker basket full of six large crabs. We had eaten two for breakfast and the others were left in their re-sealed container on the floor of the laundry room.

This one, being the largest of them all, had escaped overnight and was feeling a little peckish. Using my toes as bait I eventually persuaded it to go into the adjoining bedroom, where upon I shut the door on it so it could not escape. I then went back to secure the others within the wicker basket; counting only two remaining. This meant that another had also escaped and was loose somewhere in the apartment!

The next twelve hours proved to be quite enthralling, as every time I moved I took with me: the electronic bat to kill Dan Fong – searching high first and especially around the windows, doors and light fittings. Meanwhile my senses were alert for any ground movement that might indicate and irascible crab intent on dining upon my smaller and exposed appendages. I had this one covered by taking with me a plastic bucket!

Then I also had the cockroach splatter thingymagig with me also, and swapped equipment according to the perceived threat in different areas of our home. I had an eventful couple of days before Siu Ying finally tracked down the missing crab to the drain connecting the washroom to the kitchen. We ate it for lunch that day, and it tasted mighty fine!

For safety Siu Ying has now put the crab basket inside of the landlord’s washing machine – it is almost identical to our own, but we do not use it. As a write to wind up this unusual missive, I note that Mr Feisty has escaped once more; but this time is confined by the tub of the washing machine. Nice One!

One last note: when the delivery men brought our own washing machine up the five storeys to our home, they complained bitterly that there was already one there. They simply could not accept the premise that the one they carried up belonged to us, whilst the other was not as good and was provided by the Landlady – it was without their comprehension. Ho-Hum!

I consider the one thing that has stuck with me throughout this missive is that in spite of what you might all suppose; I am not completely stupid all of the time. Now I may have used a little artistic licence in regaling this tale to engender a humourous aspect perhaps; but the threat posed by the Dan Fong was very real and immanent.

Siu Ying actually got the last of the male Dan Fong, after wounding it with the electronic bat in mid-air; but then having it chase her around the room in her short dress. For one moment I was desperately worried it has found a way up and inside, but then noticed it rounding to attack her face from a few feet away. I leapt in with a great backhand volley and wristy spin that would have graced any international squash court. She then followed it and fried it on the floor with her electronic bat. I bashed it to pieces and what was left of it was thrown out of the window. Job done!

Soon afterwards: with our hearts still racing - we cuddled in front of the TV, forgetting to turn it on as the inimitable human natures’ of boys and girls took its course, and love reappeared once more to play its part in our lives.