[blackhole]

Fearing that their growing population might spread disease and destroy crops, Vietnam has banned the sale and possession of hamsters, which have launched somewhat of a subculture among the country's youth.

Starting Monday, the fine for trading or owning a hamster will reach up to 30 million dong (1,875 US dollars), the Ministry of Agriculture said. They express concern that hamsters have been imported illegally from China, Thailand, or Taiwan, and are left unlicensed and unchecked for diseases.

"Traders illegally carry hamsters across borders and do not register with customs to quarantine these animals," said a senior official of the Animal Health Department.

Although the Animal Health Department has said they will kill any hamster that has been imported illegally, there are no plans for a mass elimination of hamsters.

"Destroying them all is really a big problem," agriculture ministry official Nguyen Thanh Son said. "I think the Vietnam animal health department should take some samples, conduct tests, and see how dangerous the hamsters in Vietnam really are."

Hamsters arrived in Vietnam years ago for use in scientific research, but have only become popular recently. The rodents' increasing popularity with youngsters has been attributed to 2008 being the Year of the Rat in the Chinese Zodiac. Their adoration can be seen online, where there are numerous forums allowing hamster owners to talk about their beloved pets. The craze has even spawned offline "hamster clubs".

[Rictor]

The Vietnamese are weird people. "Hamster clubs", eh?

That said, I think there's bigger fish to fry concerning government repression than hamster ownership.

[karajorma]

Yeah but it's like the Taliban banning kite flying (and pretty much everything else). It's impressive in it's arbitrariness. 

[Herra Tohtori]

If they wanted to prevent, you know, actually dangerous diseases from having excellent mutating and spreading conditions, they would ban open chicken coops and bird market areas.

...but surely, hamsters pose a greater risk to the nation.

[Ford Prefect]

Jesus ****ing Christ on a cracker. I've been awake for almost two days straight writing papers, my brain is fried to the point where reality is this elusive set of stage props that my mind has assembled to guard against solipsism, and this is the first thing I see as I pass by this forum.

[S-99]

Start adopting guinea pigs? Or perhaps for celebrating the year of the rat start having rats as pets?

[MP-Ryan]

If they wanted to prevent, you know, actually dangerous diseases from having excellent mutating and spreading conditions, they would ban open chicken coops and bird market areas.

...but surely, hamsters pose a greater risk to the nation.

You took the words right out of my mouth =)

[BloodEagle]

Hamster club? Is that anything like a Rat-flail?

[S-99]

Perhaps it's as good as a rat flail. Maybe we don't fully understand the popularity with hamsters in vietnam. The worst you could do with a hamster is release a male and female hamster into someones house when they don't know.

But, actually a worse thing you can do is find a hole in someones wall, and start shoving as many crickets as you can into that hole to get them good and inside that wall. The crickets will start breeding. The crickets will start making their noises multiplied by how much they breed and mature. It's really annoying, i don't wish it upon anyone, and their so hard to get rid of when someone does this to your house.

This happened to my best friend's house in his parents bedroom. He spent three weeks with a vacuum cleaner looking for all those crickets taking apart the wall panels. Poor dude, then again, he just waited till the crickets started making their noises so he could pinpoint their location and suck'em up.

Vacuum cleaners work great for flies too. They can't resist the vacuum cleaner (doesn't work for bees, they just fly faster and do whatever they can to avoid the vacuum cleaner).