Online posts help passengers understand the work of the network's officers

Before I interviewed Ma Tuo, I never realized that there were police rooms in subway stations.

Instead, I thought that officers would be rushed from a nearby police station in the event of any problems on the underground rail network.

Ma told me that two police officers are assigned to large or high-traffic stations, while smaller stations host one officer.

During rush hours, the officers patrol the stations, while the rest of the time, they are on call in the police room.

"Having police rooms in subway stations ensures that officers can arrive at the scene as quickly as possible. Compared with quarrels or fights in communities, similar conflicts in the confined subway, especially during peak commuting periods, can escalate more quickly, making passengers angrier or more emotional," Ma said.

"Therefore, solving trivial issues quickly is a must for officers in the subway, and the work can also ensure normal underground traffic and help save other passengers a lot of time."

Writing has always been Ma's hobby: when he was a student, he liked fiction, but he said that at the time his writing was aimless. He recalled that as soon as he began recording the people he met and the incidents that happened to him at work, he knew that he had found his own way to write.

"Put simply, the subway constantly provides rich materials to write about, and the process of writing makes me think more about my work and life," he said.

During my conversation with him, I thought of a well-known saying by the French writer, Romain Rolland, "There is only one heroism in the world: to see the world as it is and to love it."

That, it seems, is what Ma is doing through his writing.