Shasha, the nickname of an auxiliary police officer, works at Jiangdong police station, Yiwu, a county-level city in Jinhua. In order to better serve the foreign people and ethnic minorities under her administration, Shasha has studied Turkish, Arabic and the languages of five countries in Central Asia on her own.

Shasha is a Uygur woman from Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. She was not able to speak fluent mandarin during her teens.

"Speaking fluent mandarin is the first step in seeing a bigger world," said Shasha, who believes that language is a good tool to close the distance between people.

During her university days, Shasha mastered Mandarin and English and used her spare time to participate in trainings, hence laying the foundation for her mastery of Arabic and Turkish. She has also made friends from around the world during her university studies.

After graduation, Shasha came to work in Yiwu in 2017. She said, "I love this open, inclusive and diversified city as I can meet people from all over the world in the city."

In 2018, Shasha became an auxiliary police officer at the Jiangdong police station. She was surprised that being multilingual was very useful to her work.

Although Shasha has worked as an auxiliary police officer for less than two years, she has already become a celebrity in the area under the administration of Jiangdong police station. She has also been approached by foreigners to do translation.

Mastering various languages has not only improved her work efficiency, but also helped win over the trust of others, she said.

Shasha. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]