There must be many foreign friends to visit Shanghai during the World Expo. By rights, staff from window units should know some English- the international common language , but how do they communicate with foreigners who speak rare languages? For this reason, it is thoughtful of Changning District Public Security Suboffice to place police service cards in eight foreign languages including Arabic in the windows of 20 public security systems today after one-month trial run.

When the reporter arrived at Xinhua Police Station, John from France, accompanied by one of his friends in Shanghai, was paying his special thanks to all policemen at the station. John said that during his first trip to Shanghai the other day, he accidentally left his mobile phone, the only channel to contact his Shanghai friend, in a taxi. After reporting the case to the police station, he was unable to tell his own difficulties to the policemen because he can’t speak English. But when the policeman gave him this police service card in French, he completed this card by himself. Soon, with the policemen's help, his cell phone was found, and he immediately contacted his friend in Shanghai. Interview: (John, a friend from France) It is learnt that this service card in eight languages including French and Arabic encompasses the basic information on foreigners, the case summary information, etc. Once a policeman at the window fails to communicate with a foreigner, the foreigner may choose the card in his native language and fill it in item by item. Through this card, the police know his identity and initially judge the reasons why he comes to the police station so that they can provide effective assistance for foreigners as soon as possible. So far, in addition to issuing the Foreign Language Police Service Card to the window units of approximately 20 public security systems within the area, Changning District Public Security Suboffice also set up a core team of translators consisting of more than 30 young policemen to help front-line police officers further improve their foreign language proficiency.