Taichung Park tourist police.

Tourist police officers give a
guided tour to a foreign visitor.

Taichung Park

Female police officers give a
guided tour in English

Taichung Park's Tourism Ambassador

Police officials providing comprehensive public services

Words and photos by Taichung City Government
Translated by Ann Lee

Taichung Park's tourist police have gained a good reputation for themselves in recent years, so that even visiting Japanese tourists have already heard about their excellent guide services. This team of officers has diligently provided guide and other services to Taichung tourists, and were joined by four new team members early this year. Each new officer was selected by the Taichung Police Bureau, and has a solid command of English, as well as great public service attitude and excellent physical conditioning.

This team of tourist police will begin offering their services as new parks are established in Taichung. The city's police bureau has already come up with a brand-new uniform design and unit badge, in hopes of presenting city residents and visitors with an all-new image to match the new unit's comprehensive services.

Tourists show appreciation for guided Taichung Park tours
"This is the Taichung Park Pavilion, and this is the Shinto Shrine...." During the Japanese colonial period, a ceremony was held in Taichung Park to mark the completion of the entire Taiwan railway system. Consequently, there are today a number of park attractions that Japanese tourists want to explore. However, those offering them guided tours don't work for travel agencies but, rather, are Taichung Park police officers. Its abundance of historical sites and a variety of plants has also made the park very popular for school field trips, which can be seen there regularly, up to two or three groups per day. The park police also assist teachers with these visits, acting as friendly big brothers and sisters for the kids.

These tours are up to a professional standard. Besides officers' comprehensive introductions, multiple tour routes have been planned to accommodate the different needs of visitors. One can choose a one-hour tour, seeing only the main highlighted park attractions, or a half-day tour, allowing them to more fully explore the park's beauty. A tourist service center inside the park offers itinerary recommendations to those requesting such services. Tourist service center Chief Officer Chen Feng-gen has created a 20-plus page tour brochure, introducing each Taichung Park attraction, on his own. Every tourist police officer is required to know this information by heart. Part of their training involves role-playing in their free time, with officers playing the parts of tourist and guide. All these efforts allow the tourist police to not only give great presentations, but also act as tourism ambassadors, promoting Taichung city to visitors from around the world.

Guarding city overall safety: Police play the role of psychiatrist
Besides guided tours, police must also preserve the security of the park and its visitors. This extends to teenagers who may be hanging out after an argument or fight with parents. Officers have been known to talk to them and offer advice, in essence acting as counselors. Occasionally, they also encounter more unusual situation, like those wanting to jump into the park lake, or accidentally falling in. This means officers also need good swimming skills, in addition to many other attributes, to do this muti-faceted job.

Recently, Taichung Park has been promoting a "Voice of the Police, Spreading Warmth to the Public" program. Officers utilize a monitoring and broadcasting system to receive video feeds of what's happening inside the park. At the same time, they can also notify park-goers about public services they provide, via broadcast announcements in Mandarin, Taiwanese, English and Japanese. This also notes the park's lost-and-found service, informs visitors when they are violating park rules, and handles inquiries from foreigner travelers. This park broadcast system is actually a tradition dating back to the Japanese colonial era, and helps boost effective police public service.

Services in multiple languages
Taichung Park's tourist police center was established three years, originally to crack down on violations by visitors. However, the city police bureau is taking steps to train a professional tourist police unit. There are a total of 15 officers working in the park police center. The youngest is only 23, while the rest are mostly in their early to mid 30s. These have been recruited from among the youngest, most energetic officers in each of the city's police precincts.

At the beginning of this year, when tourist police recruitment first began, the goal was to select individuals with the best language skills and most enthusiastic work ethic. At the moment, four new tourist police have been recruited (two male, two female). Officer Lee Xin-chuan used to work at the First Precinct's Da-Cheng branch station. She graduated from Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages, and received a certified high-intermediate grade for her GEPT English exam, as well as a grade 4 on her Japanese exam. She also has excellent physical conditioning and great interpretation skills, giving her the highest scores during the recruiting drive. Officer Peng Wen-da, who used to work at a Nantou district police station, obtained a law degree from Soochow University and is fluent in both English and Japanese, but can also speak some German and Hakka, in addition to Mandarin, giving him skills in six languages. Both officers Huang Zhao-lin and Lin Zhi-yuan also have intermediate level English from taking Cambridge ESOL Exams. With this new blood working at the Taichung Park, tourists can expect to be well looked after throughout their park tours, as these officers display truly professional skills in helping the public.

Taichung Park's tourist police center has also served as a hub for city government park administration staff, and a brand-new government administration office will soon be built inside the park. This will be unveiled along with the new new uniforms and badges of the tourist police, as these devoted park ambassadors anticipate providing even better future services to residents and tourists alike.