I hate cockroaches

One thing I've always hated about living in Asia is cockroaches. The cockroaches here are huge, with bodies more than an inch long, and antennae even longer. They aren't only freakishly big, but they also move freakishly quickly, darting across the floor and even up and down walls at dazzling speeds. Just looking at them, even from dozens of metres away, makes me shiver.

I'd rather wrestle a bear than deal with a cockroach. Or deal with a pack of ferocious guard dogs.

I've been fortunate to almost never have cockroaches in my bedroom. Only once did I see a cockroach in my ground-floor dorm room in Taipei, and I was spared cockroaches in my 8th floor rooftop apartment when I went back 2 years later, and I didn't even see cockroaches in Beijing, let alone in my apartment there, and so far, I haven't seen cockroaches in my dorm room in Hong Kong, thank Allah.

The one time that I saw a cockroach in my dorm in Taipei, it was around 3am, and I was just about ready to go to bed. As I returned to my dorm after brushing my teeth, I noticed two antennae sticking out from the top of my slightly ajar closet door, and they were MOVING! I slowly, but cautiously opened the closet door, and there it was, a big huge cockroach in front of my eyes. I SCREAMED, and the Korean guy who lived next door came into my room right on cue. He saw the cockroach, grabbed a broom from the lounge, then brushed the cockroach to the ground, then swept it out the door. My hero. Except then, the Korean guy decided to toy with me, and proceeded to play "cockroach hockey" by swinging the broom like a hockey stick and delivering a slapshot to my then-closed door. The cockroach was still moving after two slapshots, but on the third, it disappeared under the gap between the door and the floor! Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night. Thankfully, I was due to leave Taipei in a month or so.

There was a Korean restaurant hidden in a side street near my school in Taipei that my buddy Bill and I loved to frequent. We ate bibimbap (stone pot mixed rice) or the grilled beef set menu every day for a couple of months... UNTIL one day, I saw a cockroach climbing up the wall at that place. That same day, I went to the washroom to wash my hands, and was shocked to discover brown water coming out of the tap. I did go back to that place though, 3 years later. Fortunately, they renovated the place, and it wasn't quite so dingy anymore.

And I remember one day, when I had just arrived in Taipei in 2000, I was walking in the side streets in front of Taipei Main Station and it suddenly rained HEAVILY. So heavily that some streets there were flooded with water at least 1 foot deep. I was wearing sports sandals that day and didn't mind (and didn't have much choice but to go) wading through this shin-high water to cross streets. Even some of the sidewalks were flooded with a couple of inches of water. Anyway, as I passed a restaurant and a "love hotel" that were adjacent to each other, I saw HUNDREDS of cockroaches swarming out of the doors and into the water! Needless to say, I walked back from whence I came and took another route. And of course, I never ate at that restaurant, or rented a room at that love hotel.

I've only had physical contact with cockroaches once, in a supermarket, and once again, in Taipei. I was standing in a check-out line at Wellcome, and I suddenly felt something on my shoulder. Thinking it was a mosquito or a low-hanging sign, I turned my head and brushed my shoulder. To my horror, a cockroach fell to the ground and started crawling around at my feet! I couldn't move for at least one minute, and was so shaken with fear that I shivered for about half an hour after that.


Summer in Hong Kong is characterised by thunderstorms (and intense heat and humidity when it's not raining), and after the summer comes the typhoon season. Weather forecasts have been warning of thunderstorms almost every other day lately, but the thunder, lightning, and rain rarely materialise. But in the case that they do, people have to be extra careful right before the storms come. Hong Kong is usually quite free of cockroaches (compared to Taipei), except for the few hours before a heavy rain. Cockroaches seem to know when rain will come, and they come out of hiding and torment me on sidewalks and darkened staircases. During such times, I suspect anything that moves on the sidewalk of being a cockroach. Many a leaf blowing in the wind has made me stop in my tracks and shiver. I laugh at myself, especially since 9 times out of 10, it's just a leaf. But when it's actually a cockroach, I'm at my wit's end! I've jumped many feet up in the air before, making friends and people around me wonder which mental hospital I've escaped from. I've had the fortune of never letting out a scream in public, but people wonder why a tough-looking guy sometimes looks so petrified. Anyway, I've got months of this ahead of me, and I will probably never be safe, but will at least be somewhat more safe in the late autumn. Oh damn! Once I move out of this dorm in this clean dorm building on this clean university campus, I'll have to rent substandard housing which will be sure to have cockroaches. Damn, I'd rather wrestle a bear. Or deal with a pack of ferocious guard dogs.


NOTE: I wanted to post a picture of a cockroach on this page, but when I googled for pictures of them, they really freaked me out!