"Mice-killing king" saves State billions of dong
17:00 04/04/2009

By killing more than 16 million mice over the past 10 years, farmer-turned-businessman Tran Quang Thieu has helped save tens of billions of dong for the State budget.      

On his travel from north to south over the past decade, he has visited numerous factories and companies in cities and rice fields in rural areas with a mere mission to help eradicate mice.

Tran Quang Thieu, who now owns a company of the same name specialised in killing mice, said as far back as 2000 when he was head of a production team, he could not stand seeing the efforts of his fellow farmers in Binh Vong hamlet, Van Binh Commune in the former Ha Tay Province’s Thuong Tin District end up in smoke due to mice infestation.

Thieu then spent several sleepless nights on devising a new type of mouse trap that is semicircular in shape and needs no bait.

His invention had effectively prevented rats from damaging rice fields in that year and resulted in substantially higher yield than previous years.

He founded Tran Quang Thieu Co in 2006 with a staff of 30. It currently has 50 employees, mostly returnees who are involved in making mouse traps and providing mouse-killing services.

Thieu’s extensive experience in killing rats has enabled him to learn about the habits as well as their movement to seek food and reproductive practices of 43 different species of mice.

Though successful in killing mice, Thieu said he has repeatedly suffered several unexpected consequences from doing the job."I once had a rash break out all over my body after catching 260kg of mice, it took me months later to recover."

"That is not to mention itches caused by the mice parasites clinging to my body."

Thieu however said he wished he could introduce his improved mouse traps abroad to make his dream of a mice-free world come true.

The Hare and the Tortoise

It was early in the morning, far ahead of the peak traffic hours. Yet the buses running on Route 2 from Bac Co to Ha Dong in the capital city were proceeding at a funereal pace, much to the amazement of both passengers and others on the street. Usually in a hurry to pick up as many passengers as possible and reach their destination, they were being overtaken by bicycles.

"I could not understand what the (expletive) was going on. My bus was running even more slowly than bicycles while passengers were in a great hurry to get to work. We asked the driver to speed up, but he refused, saying he would be fined if he did so under new rules," says Mai Huong, a worker of the Electricity Company branch in Ha Dong City and a regular commuter on the bus route. Like Huong, many other passenges gave up trying to persuade the drivers and found other ways to reach their places of work.

Meanwhile, the number of buses on the route climbed to eight, clogging up the city’s bus lanes.

"According to the new rule, we’ll be fined for arriving at bus stops earlier than schedule but there aren’t any regulations for coming late. So I don’t see why we have to hurry up," said one driver who wanted to remain anonymous.

Nguyen Van Thong, director of the bus company, said the incidence was a misunderstanding between the company and their drivers.

"Our new policy is to reduce accidents caused by careless drivers, not to trouble the drivers," he said, promising to negotiate with the drivers and solve the problem soon.

Sometimes, slow and steady may not win the race.

VietNamNet/VNS

Source : vietnamnet.vn