Chinese police officers Shu Jian (first from right) and Sa Yiming (second from right) patrol with their Italian counterparts near the Colosseum in Rome on May 2 under a Sino-Italian agreement launched that day. (Photo/Xinhua)
Two Chinese policemen patrolling the streets of Rome in their dark-blue uniforms and caps is not something that you would imagine to ever witness in the Italian capital.
Instead this is exactly what happened for two weeks with a precise objective: to protect Chinese tourists.
"What places have you visited in Rome so far?" Pang Bo, 44, a top supervisor in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, asked a surprised Chinese kid who was walking around the ancient city with his father on a sunny afternoon of May.
Some local people also approached Pang to pose with him for a unique photograph, or just to have a little chat.
"Italian language was my major at university. And I also spent a year in Naples, a major city in southern Italy, in an interchange program," Pang's younger partner, Li Xiang, 27, told Xinhua while moving across Rome's iconic squares and shopping streets in a local police car.
Later in the day, Li could also train his Italian language answering the questions of some curious local residents and journalists.
"And this is Italian 'spaghetti' (noodles)," he told Xinhua in fluent Italian while having lunch with his Italian colleagues at the local police canteen.
Pang and Li, who is based in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, are two of the four Chinese policemen who patrolled touristic areas of Rome and the business city Milan in northern Italy for two weeks thanks to a Sino-Italian innovative program launched at the beginning of May.
"Our presence here has certainly increased the sense of security of Chinese tourists and Chinese residents in Italy. And if there is any concrete need or problem, we can help them more easily," Pang went on explaining to Xinhua.
The initiative, which stemmed from a bilateral agreement reached in 2014, was the first one of its kind carried out by Chinese police in Europe.
Italy has become one of the top European destinations for Chinese tourists, with estimated around three million travelers from China visiting the country every year.
Media reports of petty crime and lost documents are fairly common in Rome as well as in other European cities, but Chinese nationals face larger cultural and linguistic difficulties compared to local visitors in knowing how to seek help.
Italy had already carried out similar initiatives with other countries including the United States and Spain, especially during peak tourism periods.
Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told a press conference in Rome that Italy was feeling proud now to undergo such an important collaboration with what he defined as a country, China, with "a fundamental role in the world's destiny."
"Through this initiative, we are telling Italian citizens that their state is joining hands with a great country, in a team work to ensure the safety of everybody, including Italian citizens and Chinese tourists in Italy," Alfano told Xinhua.
He also said he hoped the bilateral collaboration would then be deepened with further agreements, and also extended to other Italian cities.
During their busy days in Rome, Pang and Li also had the chance to exchange views and knowledge with their team's colleagues of Italy's police and Carabinieri military police.
"I hope I will also be able to visit China and have a similar work experience there one day," one of them told Xinhua.
Several Italian residents praised the initiative.
"I think Chinese policemen can definitely help. And they speak Mandarin, which is a fundamental tool to communicate with many Chinese citizens here," said Patrizia Facchinotti, the owner of a greengrocer's in Milan's Chinatown, where more than 70 percent of shops are run by Chinese owners.
"An intercultural collaboration between different police forces is always a positive thing," Nicola Leuci, who runs a nearby flower shop, agreed.
