Monday, June 12, 2017

The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902

Yes! Rats!

Back in 1982, just arriving to Chicago, a Mexican mystic man told me that Chicago was going to be dominated by rats "you will see... rats are developing an underground city underneath of the streets..."
The thought of it was disgusting to me. I think of his words often when here in the Lakeview neighborhood where I live, the rats are immune to any poison offer to them and they keep multiplying.

Back in the late 90s, in a long article written in The Chicago Reader by Ted Kleine (1998) I read
"... in 1991 a rat burst out of a bank president's private toilet in Lincoln Park..."

That was all I needed to increase my disgust toward those creatures and to develop a fear that one of them would appear on my toilet when I'm using it.

In spite of my fear I also have a fascination toward those rodents that seem to be casted under an evil spell. So any article(s) on rats gets my attention.

I found one of those articles few weeks ago on the Atlas Obscura newsletter titled: The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902. Fascinating story of battles against the rats, money, and the final success of rats. Click on the link to take you to the story: the great Hanoi rat massacre of1902

And to finish on a more positive note about these disgusting rodents, I searched for the spiritual-symbolic meaning of rats and I found very positive qualities attributed to them such as:
success, sharing, helpful, opportunistic, resourcefulness, astute, intelligent, kindness, ambition, expansion and creativity. No bad, wouldn't you say?...


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