Question

what do you understand by rat hunt

Answer 1

The city of Hanoi was built by using modern engineering and architecture. A beautiful city was built for the colonial masters. It had wide avenues and well laid out sewer system. The irony was that the sewer system; which was being touted as the symbol of hygiene became the perfect breeding ground for rats and led to the plague epidemic in Hanoi.
The Rat Hunt:
To stop the spread of plague, as rat hunt was started in 1902. Vietnamese workers were hired for the task and were paid for each rat being caught. People began to catch rats in thousands. The payment was done when a tail of a rat was shown as a proof that a rat had been killed. Many people began just clipping the tails and collecting the bounty. Many people even began to raise rat to earn more. This incident showed that at some juncture even the superior power of a colonial master fails and even the weak can assume a very strong bargaining position.