The Deliberate Rat Crisis of 1902
By: Philip Naudus
Tags: White Privilege, Humor, Karma, History, Racism

The Deliberate Rat Crisis of 1902

A creative retaliation against white supremacists

Vietnam during the French occupation (Public domain/Wikimedia Commons)

When the French came to Asia, they were determined to bring white civility to the unfortunate locals through the use of superior science and technology. After conquering Indochina, which included what is now Vietnam, the French made Hanoi into the capital of their new colony. They were positive that this city would become a testament to how white man’s modernity could solve every one of the indigenous Vietnamese people’s shortcomings.

The city that was once filled with narrow alleys was transformed so that it now had shady trees and luxurious mansions lining the broad roads. Meanwhile, the natives were herded into the Old Quarter — ninety per cent of the population was crammed into less than one-third of the land they had previously occupied.

Of all the innovations the French brought with them, nothing rivaled their state-of-the-art plumbing system. Running water and flushable toilets ensured that the residents of the European Quarter lived in a state of constant luxury. Clean water could be gathered with almost no effort at all, and the removal of waste was just as simple.

While the French people were congratulating themselves for liberating the Vietnamese from their backward lifestyle, the locals were less than enthusiastic when it came to welcoming their white overlords. Europeans had indoor plumbing installed into their own homes, but the Old Quarter was only given public fountains.

Although these water fountains made a slight improvement over their previous way of life, the downsides of this new plumbing and sewage system hardly made the convenience worthwhile. The French had already spent so many resources making their own drainage network that the Old Quarter was left with a system that was woefully inadequate. Water would carry human waste down the sides of the streets until the gutters emptied into a nearby lake. This not only polluted the waters that surrounded a temple, but the lake would overflow once a year, filling the streets with sewage.

However, when a Frenchman flushed a toilet, he could be assured that superior technology ensured that his feces disappeared forever — at least, so he thought.

The Crisis Begins

Few people realized that these advanced sewers would soon become the ideal breeding ground for rats. The dark tunnels not only kept the rats safe from predators, but they served as a network of roads that would lead them into homes of every European family. The rats began pouring out of the toilets and into the bedrooms of even the wealthy elite.

The council responded by deploying a team of rat-catchers into the sewers to eliminate the infestation. But of course, no self-respecting Frenchman would voluntarily enter a sewer. Because the entire city of Hanoi had been built by employing the locals to perform manual labor, it only made sense to have the Vietnamese people climb into the filthy underground tunnels.

The French reasoned that they were employing the locals and providing a source of income for these unfortunate neighbors. And, indeed, the Vietnamese people were so impoverished that when the city council offered one cent per rat killed, an army of men rose up to take the job.

In the first week, the rat-catchers killed over 1,000 rats per day. After a few weeks passed, and the laborers became more efficient at their trade, they were able to amass 4,000 rat corpses per day. A month into the crusade, rat catchers were consistently reporting having killed over 10,000 rodents in a single day. Because the sewers seemed to produce an unlimited supply of rats, the Vietnamese laborers eagerly descended into them. A day’s work could yield enough to buy fifty measures of rice — but of course, this had to be shared among the laborers.

But as tens of thousands of rodent corpses began accumulating in the streets, the wealthy Europeans began complaining about the ghastly sight and stench. When the locals emerged covered in sewage and carrying buckets filled with the bloody remains of rodents, the residents of the white community began insisting that the indigenous people were as filthy as the rats they hunted. They needed to be kept off the streets.

This was the final straw for the Vietnamese people. They had labored to build this marvelous city but were not allowed to enjoy any of its luxuries. Now, they were being coerced into filthy — not to mention dangerous — working environments. But to be banned from sight was unreasonable.

The rat-catchers went on strike. Within a few weeks, the rodent population had grown exponentially to the point that the city council was willing to offer a fourfold increase in the workers’ wages. Additionally, the laborers were to dispose of the corpses on their own, they only needed to provide the rat tails to receive payment.

At first, the natives grumbled. But then, someone proposed a brilliant plan.

Now that they were supposed to enter and exit the sewers unseen, there was no need to risk exposure to diseases and wild animals when they could receive four cents per tail by farming rats. When it came time to harvest the tails, the rats were allowed to live and continue to breed. Soon, the Old Quarter was harvesting thousands of tails each day. Rats became a valuable commodity, and some locals even began importing rats from the surrounding villages.

But of course, the rats in the sewers only continued to multiply. When the city council realized that there was no reduction in the number of rats pouring out of their toilets, they became suspicious. When they began to see a few stray tailless rats running free, they became so upset that they canceled the rat-catching program altogether.

The locals canceled their farms, and let all their rodents go free — presumably into the sewers of the European Quarter.

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