Undercover chengguan posed as street vendor

Authorities in Wuhan, Hubei Province Monday clarified that the urban management officer, or chengguan, who operated a street stall at night, was working undercover to better understand the duties required of his job.

The 33-year-old officer, surnamed Gui, pretended to be a street vendor "experiencing vendors' lives" to develop a sense of empathy, said a statement sent by Hongshan District Urban Management Bureau to the Global Times.

Pictures, showing Gui patrolling the street by day and setting up a stall selling mugs at night were first posted by a local Web user Saturday and gained huge popularity online, as the officers' main duty is to drive away illegal vendors.

The district urban management bureau revealed Gui is a full-time officer via its Sina Weibo account Sunday, and he was in a two-month operation with a female colleague, surnamed Yang.

At a press conference held Monday at the bureau, Gui talked about his experiences as a street vendor, and some parts of their diaries were made public.

Yang wrote that from the angle of the vendors, they did not steal or rob things, and they earn money by hard work, but the vendors still may harm people's interests, and so some may feel the night market should be canceled.

The head of the district urban management bureau, Zhao Yang, said that the campaign was top secret, and only some bureau leaders know of it. It was planned to last two months, and they didn't think it would be exposed so soon.

However, Web users later became suspicious that the endeavor was merely a stunt orchestrated by Wuhan chengguanauthorities to build a positive image. The Web user who first posted the pictures deleted the posts and cannot be reached for comment.

Bai Shui, a news commentator who gives remarks on TV in Hubei Province, told the Global Times that he believes the photos posted online were taken professionally, using framing techniques to track the officer. "This activity normally should include more chengguan, instead of just two," Bai said. "If this is just hyped up by chengguanauthorities, it's a bad strategy, which will give them a bad reputation."