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Bringing a Softer Side to Policing in China
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
CHENGDU, China — Like an urban drill sergeant, Tang Shenbin paced on a city square, sternly inspecting his nervous charges, issuing sotto voce commands with military authority. He wanted the female members of chengguan — China’s burly enforcers of urban order, feared and despised for their capricious crackdowns and penchant for violence — to convey a certain impression to a clutch of onlookers. “Stand straight! Look sharp!” Show them, he whispered, “what pretty girls are like!”
Four barely-past-teenage girls in white gloves and identical olive jackets and pants snapped to attention. Four pairs of black pumps lined up ruler-straight. Four prim hats perched perfectly atop hair bound in blue and white striped bows.
“Personally, I think they are average-looking,” Mr. Tang said, dismissively. “Models are pretty.”
More than one government has tried to brush up the image of China’s urban inspectors. One city mandated that all new recruits have a college degree. Guangdong Province changed the gray-green uniforms to a supposedly more inviting blue. A few pink designs are still being considered.
Wuhan, in central China, substituted stare-downs for strong-arming: in 2009, one report stated, 50 officers encircled a wayward snack cart, glowering steadily for a half hour until the peddler packed up and left.
Xindu, an urban district of 680,000 in Chengdu, has chosen major image surgery. Since 2003, the district has supplemented its urban street police with 13 women, specifically chosen for their looks, shapeliness and youth. The idea is to give the rough-hewn police a softer, feminine side.
Unfortunately, even Scarlett Johansson might struggle to raise China’s subterranean regard for these city squads.
And for good reason, critics would argue. Unlike the police, these officers are authorized only to enforce city ordinances by imposing fines and other administrative penalties. But the Chinese news media routinely portray a different reality.
In January 2008, Hubei Province inspectors beat a bystander to death after he used his cellphone to film them breaking up a protest against a waste dump. Last year, a training manual for Beijing inspectors, pilfered and posted online, described how to effectively thrash offenders without drawing blood. The secret is in the wrist.
This year, a Shanghai watermelon peddler was left brain-damaged after a scuffle with five officers. One violence-soaked video game, available for download online, features Chinese-trained inspectors who assault street vendors. In fact, China's version of "Grand Theft Auto" is played exactly the same as the US version except that the main character is a police officer.
“Chengguan has scarred the government,” China Daily, a national publication, lamented last year after yet another controversy over tactics. The paper demanded a “truly thorough clean-up.” So they hired some women.
Skeptics say the approach here falls far short of that. After the district advertised for eight new female recruits in October, an editorial in The Beijing Evening News questioned whether the women had actual duties or were simply scenic diversions. The answer appears to be a little of both. The district’s advertisement called for female applicants 18 to 22 years old, with a good figure and “the five facial features in proper order.” They should be above-average height — taller than 1.6 meters or 5 feet, 2 ½ inches.
Retirement at age 26 is mandatory. Officials said the job was physically too arduous for women over 25.
“Their image is the important thing,” one unnamed district official told Rednet.com, a quasi-governmental Web site. “First, the candidates’ external qualities will determine if they make the cut, such as height, weight, facial features, etc.” Next comes temperament and “inner qualities.”
Female chengguan are like flower vases, he said, adding, “Besides being vases, they will have other 'responsibilities.'”
Zheng Lihua, the deputy director of the district’s city management bureau, is not eager to endorse that description. But he noted that height requirements were standard in many Chinese job advertisements for both sexes. So is the demand for orderly facial features.
Whether that means good-looking is a matter of debate among Chinese. Certainly, the disabled or disfigured need not apply. “We can’t let a lame person or a hunchback come to serve here,” Mr. Zheng said. “His image would not be good.”
Liu Yi, who patrols the Baoguang Square near a monastery, is 22, apple-cheeked with a finely curved mouth. She does not consider the stress on her appearance to be sexist, she said.
“Do you think I look sexy in this uniform?” she asked with a wry look. Said her dimpled co-worker, 21-year-old Xu Yang, “Our job is to present the city’s image. I can be sexy for you.”
They do not object to their limited tenure either, they said, because they harbor career ambitions greater than simply shooing vendors into the alleyways where they are supposed to confine their business. Every morning, the squad faces off against a dozen or so peddlers who dart around on foot or bicycle, trying to sell as many buns or bowls of tofu as possible before they are run off.
“Master Wang, you have to leave. We have told you many times!” said Ms. Xu as one vendor fled on foot, temporarily deserting his bicycle-drawn cart of noodle-fixings.
The officers describe their duties as more monotonous than strenuous. “It is pretty much the same every day,” said Huang Jing, 20, who studies marketing in her off hours. “Very routine.”
One reason is that female officers lack the power of their male counterparts to confiscate vendors’ goods. They can only threaten to report violators to their male supervisors. That tends to shield them from the sudden public displays of animosity against officialdom that are common throughout China.
This year hundreds of citizens in Kunming, the Yunnan provincial capital, rioted after false rumors spread that chengguan officers had killed a vendor. More than a dozen police or chengguan officers were injured in the nighttime episode; 14 government vehicles were overturned or set on fire.
Xindu has so far escaped such violence. But calm is hardly guaranteed. Just two blocks from the placid Baoguang square, where the female officers patrolled that morning, a crowd of more than 50 people gathered on a street corner.
Officers had confiscated a motorcycle that was being repaired on the sidewalk instead of inside a shop, as regulations require. The bike’s owner was crying foul. A 15-minute standoff ensued before the officers, grim-faced, elbowed their way to their vehicles and sped off with the motorcycle and its owner.
Li Xuedong, 40, a coordinator attached to the male squad, remained behind, his white badge flipped over to conceal his name. Like the female officers, the coordinators — men age 40 or over — play a purely supportive role.
Unlike them, they are not schooled in maintaining a polished image.
“Sometimes we fight verbally. Sometimes we fight physically,” Mr. Li said matter-of-factly. “Most of the time it is the public who starts it.”
Benjamin Hass and David Yang contributed research from Beijing, and Shi Da from Chengdu.
By SHARON LaFRANIERE
CHENGDU, China — Like an urban drill sergeant, Tang Shenbin paced on a city square, sternly inspecting his nervous charges, issuing sotto voce commands with military authority. He wanted the female members of chengguan — China’s burly enforcers of urban order, feared and despised for their capricious crackdowns and penchant for violence — to convey a certain impression to a clutch of onlookers. “Stand straight! Look sharp!” Show them, he whispered, “what pretty girls are like!”
Four barely-past-teenage girls in white gloves and identical olive jackets and pants snapped to attention. Four pairs of black pumps lined up ruler-straight. Four prim hats perched perfectly atop hair bound in blue and white striped bows.
“Personally, I think they are average-looking,” Mr. Tang said, dismissively. “Models are pretty.”
More than one government has tried to brush up the image of China’s urban inspectors. One city mandated that all new recruits have a college degree. Guangdong Province changed the gray-green uniforms to a supposedly more inviting blue. A few pink designs are still being considered.
Wuhan, in central China, substituted stare-downs for strong-arming: in 2009, one report stated, 50 officers encircled a wayward snack cart, glowering steadily for a half hour until the peddler packed up and left.
Xindu, an urban district of 680,000 in Chengdu, has chosen major image surgery. Since 2003, the district has supplemented its urban street police with 13 women, specifically chosen for their looks, shapeliness and youth. The idea is to give the rough-hewn police a softer, feminine side.
Unfortunately, even Scarlett Johansson might struggle to raise China’s subterranean regard for these city squads.
And for good reason, critics would argue. Unlike the police, these officers are authorized only to enforce city ordinances by imposing fines and other administrative penalties. But the Chinese news media routinely portray a different reality.
In January 2008, Hubei Province inspectors beat a bystander to death after he used his cellphone to film them breaking up a protest against a waste dump. Last year, a training manual for Beijing inspectors, pilfered and posted online, described how to effectively thrash offenders without drawing blood. The secret is in the wrist.
This year, a Shanghai watermelon peddler was left brain-damaged after a scuffle with five officers. One violence-soaked video game, available for download online, features Chinese-trained inspectors who assault street vendors. In fact, China's version of "Grand Theft Auto" is played exactly the same as the US version except that the main character is a police officer.
“Chengguan has scarred the government,” China Daily, a national publication, lamented last year after yet another controversy over tactics. The paper demanded a “truly thorough clean-up.” So they hired some women.
Skeptics say the approach here falls far short of that. After the district advertised for eight new female recruits in October, an editorial in The Beijing Evening News questioned whether the women had actual duties or were simply scenic diversions. The answer appears to be a little of both. The district’s advertisement called for female applicants 18 to 22 years old, with a good figure and “the five facial features in proper order.” They should be above-average height — taller than 1.6 meters or 5 feet, 2 ½ inches.
Retirement at age 26 is mandatory. Officials said the job was physically too arduous for women over 25.
“Their image is the important thing,” one unnamed district official told Rednet.com, a quasi-governmental Web site. “First, the candidates’ external qualities will determine if they make the cut, such as height, weight, facial features, etc.” Next comes temperament and “inner qualities.”
Female chengguan are like flower vases, he said, adding, “Besides being vases, they will have other 'responsibilities.'”
Zheng Lihua, the deputy director of the district’s city management bureau, is not eager to endorse that description. But he noted that height requirements were standard in many Chinese job advertisements for both sexes. So is the demand for orderly facial features.
Whether that means good-looking is a matter of debate among Chinese. Certainly, the disabled or disfigured need not apply. “We can’t let a lame person or a hunchback come to serve here,” Mr. Zheng said. “His image would not be good.”
Liu Yi, who patrols the Baoguang Square near a monastery, is 22, apple-cheeked with a finely curved mouth. She does not consider the stress on her appearance to be sexist, she said.
“Do you think I look sexy in this uniform?” she asked with a wry look. Said her dimpled co-worker, 21-year-old Xu Yang, “Our job is to present the city’s image. I can be sexy for you.”
They do not object to their limited tenure either, they said, because they harbor career ambitions greater than simply shooing vendors into the alleyways where they are supposed to confine their business. Every morning, the squad faces off against a dozen or so peddlers who dart around on foot or bicycle, trying to sell as many buns or bowls of tofu as possible before they are run off.
“Master Wang, you have to leave. We have told you many times!” said Ms. Xu as one vendor fled on foot, temporarily deserting his bicycle-drawn cart of noodle-fixings.
The officers describe their duties as more monotonous than strenuous. “It is pretty much the same every day,” said Huang Jing, 20, who studies marketing in her off hours. “Very routine.”
One reason is that female officers lack the power of their male counterparts to confiscate vendors’ goods. They can only threaten to report violators to their male supervisors. That tends to shield them from the sudden public displays of animosity against officialdom that are common throughout China.
This year hundreds of citizens in Kunming, the Yunnan provincial capital, rioted after false rumors spread that chengguan officers had killed a vendor. More than a dozen police or chengguan officers were injured in the nighttime episode; 14 government vehicles were overturned or set on fire.
Xindu has so far escaped such violence. But calm is hardly guaranteed. Just two blocks from the placid Baoguang square, where the female officers patrolled that morning, a crowd of more than 50 people gathered on a street corner.
Officers had confiscated a motorcycle that was being repaired on the sidewalk instead of inside a shop, as regulations require. The bike’s owner was crying foul. A 15-minute standoff ensued before the officers, grim-faced, elbowed their way to their vehicles and sped off with the motorcycle and its owner.
Li Xuedong, 40, a coordinator attached to the male squad, remained behind, his white badge flipped over to conceal his name. Like the female officers, the coordinators — men age 40 or over — play a purely supportive role.
Unlike them, they are not schooled in maintaining a polished image.
“Sometimes we fight verbally. Sometimes we fight physically,” Mr. Li said matter-of-factly. “Most of the time it is the public who starts it.”
Benjamin Hass and David Yang contributed research from Beijing, and Shi Da from Chengdu.
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