Beijinger Resident Buying Flies To Clean Up City

Retired Chinese restaurateur Guo Zhanqi is buying flies for about 25 cents each to help clean up Beijing for next year's Olympics.

Guo can be found outside the city's Chaoyang Park handing out the reward to anyone who hands over a dead fly.

"There were always a mass of flies around the entrance to my restaurant, and no fewer inside", the 60-year-old tells a Beijing newspaper. "It was extremely disgusting".

Beijing city authorities have already instituted campaigns against spitting, littering and queue-jumping in order to improve the environment in the Chinese capital before the Olympics, and Guo wants them to add his campaign to the list.

"Buying flies is not my ultimate purpose", he says. "I want everybody to start killing flies".

Mao Zedong, the Chinese military and political leader, launched a "Four Harms" campaign in the 1950s to get rid of pests with citizens instructed to kill flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows.

So Guo has reworked Beijing's Olympic bid slogan to advertise his free market twist on Mao's campaign.

"No flies, new Beijing. No flies, great Olympics", he says.

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