EARLY yesterday morning, in the vast, tiled, canteen of Beijing Number One Power Plant, a couple of young women in trousers donned long white gloves and began putting a grain-like substance in rubber containers.
Each of the black rubber receptacles had a hole at each end, and was just about big enough for a large rat to pass through, which is what the two workers hoped would happen. Ms Liu Jun and Ms Wei Jianxin are the power- plant's rat catchers, and they showed me how they jammed the rubber traps at the back of the giant refrigerators and behind the doors where the rats slink by.
Unlike the well-known "cockroach motels" ("They check in but they don't check out again"), the rat traps are designed so that the rodents eat the grain, which is poisoned, and then leave and die a slow death out in the open.
Sometimes the sick rats area caught afterwards in their death throes, "then we finish them off with our feet", said Ms Liu, laughing and shaking her black curls and gold earrings as she stomped an imaginary rodent.
Not that the power plant has that big a rat problem. They regularly put down poison, and manage to keep at bay the rodents that come in from the densely- populated lanes nearby, but as yesterday was designated the day all Beijing should mobilise to stamp out rats, they were making an extra effort, along with people all over the Chinese capital.
"On November 12th, Beijing's official rat-killing day, warehouses, work plants, market places and construction sites will be the key targets," the official media announced, "and thousands of rodent warriors will fan out across the city, setting traps and laying poison to help rid the city of the rats."
Under the Chinese lunar calendar, 1996 is the Year of the Rat, but as China turns its wrath against the rodent, the rats might feel it certainly isn't their year.
This is by no means the first time the Chinese authorities have mobilised everyone to get rid of pests. During the Great Leap Forward 40 years ago, Chairman Mao encouraged people across China to make such a noise that sparrows would be afraid to land and would drop dead from the sky with exhaustion.
In 1993 the Chinese authorities launched a drive to wipe out Beijing flies in a clean-up ahead of an International Olympic Committee's ruling on which city would host the 2000 Olympics - though the mass fly-swatting failed to swing the decision for the Chinese capital.
Out in the rural areas the rat problem is particularly bad at this time of year, just after the grain harvest has been brought in. Not everyone is complaining however: some ethnic minorities in remote areas breed rats to eat.
While attempting to control the rat population, the National Committee for Patriotic Health Campaigns is also trying to stamp out dangerous and illegal poisons. Recent tests on 57 rat poisons bought in 16 cities revealed 60 per cent contained banned toxic substances. But the rats are also developing immunity to regular poisons. "This is new rat poison," said Mr Fang Kun of the power plant as Ms Liu and Ms Wei opened a bag of toxic cereal. "The Government are always upgrading it."
Earlier in the summer, residents of the northeastern city of Shenyang eliminated 400,000 rats in a campaign during which a bounty of one yuan (IR 8 pence) was paid for each dead rat. The Beijing residents are doing it for free.