Chinese woman swats flies eight hours a day, seven days a week

SHE is considered a heroine in her area. A woman in China swats flies eight hours a day, seven days a week. Why would she do such a thing?

1000 flies are killed by Ruan Tang a day.

THERE is a woman in China who knows the definition of hard work.

Every morning she gets up and devotes eight hours a day to swatting flies.

Ruan Tang is 80 years old and has been killing the annoying insects for 14 years in the Changmingsixiang Community in eastern China’s Hangzhou City.

Once she retired, she wanted to help the community.

“I was looking around for something to do to help the community and prove useful, and I noticed how much flies were troubling people in the summer. I decided that killing flies was the best way for me to be useful — and I’ve been doing it now every day since,” she said.

Chinese media is praising her for her dedication, with the local paper claiming flies, which are hard to kill and breed quickly, are the “enemy of the people, noisy, disease spreading and revolting”.

The flies are killed in an environmentally friendly way, locals believe.

The local newspaper said: “She manages to kill them in an environmentally friendly way. Who knows how many flies there would be in the area if she was not in action?”

It is estimated that she smacks down up to 1000 flies a day and the community has placed her on a pedestal. One neighbour, Jian Hsiao, described her as “our heroine”.

“She is really a fly-killing specialist. Just imagine how many of these pesky insects would be there if she had not been wiping so many out every day,” he said.

Speaking to local television Ruan Tang said she feels privileged to get up in the morning and do her duty.

“I feel it is a great honour to help neighbours to wipe out disgusting flies. It is also great to have a meaningful role me to do so in my age, and it helps me to keep fit,” she said.

It’s a labour of love for this 80-year-old woman to rid her town of flies.