Police officers take Cantonese classes
Posted by Jaiken Struck on March 4th, 2009Many people who live and work in Manchester’s Chinatown – the second biggest in Britain – speak little or no English. Police officers are now learning Cantonese to get closer to the city’s Chinese community.
Ten city centre neighbourhood police officers and police community support officers are learning simple phrases in Cantonese, the language of southern mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong. They are being taught at the Wai Yin Chinese Women Society in Chinatown. During the first lesson of the six-part course, officers learned introductory phases, such as `Hello’, `How are you?’ and `My name is’.
Neighbourhood Inspector for Manchester city centre, Joanne Marshall, said: “This is about building stronger relationships with the local residents and businesses in Chinatown. It is important that they see a visible police presence in their community, a friendly officer or PCSO who can say a few words of their language.”
As reported in the M.E.N, business chiefs have denied there is a crisis in the area following the shock closure of the upmarket Yang Sing Hotel on Monday. Reports have also suggested that visitor numbers to the area have fallen by 40 per cent in recent years.
“Hopefully Chinatown residents will see that the officers and PCSOs do care enough to want to understand more about the people there and find out what more they can do to help”, Marshall said.
In a similar approach, police officers in Greater Manchester have been learning Urdu for many years in order to strengthen links with the Asian community, according to a report by the BBC.
Read more: Manchester Evening News, BBC News
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