Move over Hill St Blues. A couple of reports demonstrating how Shenzhen's Public Security Bureau deal with immigration issues promptly and efficiently. These are posted on the Shenzhen PSB website and both involve the Lowu station.

1. The first story is about a 30 year old from Mali (Doucoure Abdoulaye). The PSB report says he came to the Lowu police station on 9 February to deal with his visa, which had expired. He came to counter 205 - Comrade Huang Fengzhu. When Huang input the man's name into the computer system he was found to be an AIDS patient. Huang immediately reported to Comrade Ding Minghua who, upon understanding the situation, told Huang not to act as though anything was out of the ordinary. With a calm demeanour, Huang dealt with the issue. This shows, according to the report, that the police can deal with a foreigner with an infectious disease in a calm and brave manner [as though the officer involved could have caught AIDS in this situation]. They still deported the guy, though the report doesn't say to where (I presume Hong Kong). Along with his name, age, and country of origin, they also felt the need to tell us his skin colour.

2. The second story is about a 76-year-old disabled American (Sommer Herman Benjamin), who visited the Shenzhen police station for help (15 February, again the Lowu station). The man was wheelchair bound, and the report says he seemed to be suffering from mild dementia. He told police he had been cheated by both a Chinese English language centre for which worked and which had not paid him and his intended Chinese fiancee who he had come to marry. As a result did not have enough money. The police told him that in this case he had to leave China before his visa expired. They gave him the contact details of the American embassy and explained that they could offer him water, food and enough money to contact the American embassy. He left Shenzhen the next day for Qingdao. The report has been published to indicate how well they dealt with an issue involving a foreigner (i.e., he left the city and thus didn't cause them any more problems).

Will the Lowu station soon become a tourist attraction in its own right?