SHANGHAI policeman Chen Dong found himself suddenly in the glare of media spotlight after a female fan broadcast a video on the Internet showing his cool discipline and snappy hand signals directing rush hour traffic. Reporter Dong Hui spoke to the idol of many female fans about a traffic cop's lot in rush hour Shanghai.

Shanghai traffic cop Chen Dong has become a multi-media celebrity over the past year. The tall, slim 27-year-old policeman with a pixie smile became a star online and offline, after an admirer tagging him "the most handsome traffic cop" uploaded a short video of him in action in February and it became an instant hit.

"Chen Dong knows more reporters than me now, to be frank," said Zhang Yandong, media coordinator of Jing'an District police. "Even entertainment news reporters and sports news reporters came after him." Chen was interviewed by most Shanghai newspapers and various television programs on Dragon TV and CCTV, Zhang said.

It all started with a female internet video maker shooting a 10-minute film of Chen at work. She uploaded it onto Youku.com, an online video-sharing site, and tens of thousands of Netizens immediately became aware of the traffic cop. Some of them realized they had probably met him at the intersection of Beijing Road W. and Jiaozhou Road in Shanghai's central Jing'an District.

"I wanted to become a cop when I was young, probably because I was a boy."

Chen, a star in Jing'an District traffic police No. 5 branch, works the crossroad on the morning and evening rush hours every weekday. With spotless white gloves and a gleaming silver whistle, he single-handedly tames the great tides of cars and people.

"He works hard, really hard. As long as he works at the crossroad, he will keep the traffic moving. I see him every day at the intersection!" said a resident of Jiaozhou Road who drives to work on Wuzhong Road. "(He) looks so smart," an elementary school student said.

But Chen wasn't so confident on his first day at work about three years ago.

"After I reported for work, a supervisor told me about my job and took me for a look," Chen recalled. "He showed me for about 15 minutes how to control the traffic, then he left me to it. I could do nothing but brave it out."

Chen's supervisor then watched the young policeman at work but saw him simply standing in the traffic, without making any control gestures. He then called Chen aside.

"You really don't know what to do at first and have no idea how to direct with your gestures," Chen said. "All the vehicles follow your instruction but at the time I didn't have the confidence. I froze and looked stupid. People couldn't figure out what I was doing just standing there."

Chen was following a childhood ambition to become a policeman.

"I wanted to become a cop when I was young, probably because I was a boy," Chen said. One of twins born to two doctors in Shanghai, the family lived in Shandong Province until the end of their children's senior high school.

Chen came to Shanghai in 1998 to study bioengineering at East China University of Science and Technology. In senior year, he won a part scholarship to Southern California Polytechnic University, but financial problems led him to abandon further study. He then landed a job in a Japanese food company, serving as a flavoring researcher in a research and development department.

Two years later, Chen quit to take the city's civil servant recruitment exam, looking to become a police officer.

"I wanted to have a try, instead of staying at home, to see what profession I could get," he said.

Chen was assigned during his probation to the Jing'an District Public Security Bureau traffic team. From the start, his post was the crossroads of Beijing Road W. and Jiaozhou Road.

"Drivers will tell you the traffic sucks. They will complain saying 'what are you officers doing here? How could it be such a jam!' Of course as a traffic cop it doesn't make you very happy."

Each workday, Chen and his colleagues start work at 7am, driving to their post on motorbikes and take up position in the center of their crossroads.

Chen manages the incessant traffic flow in two shifts, from 7:30am to 10am and from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, the peak periods of a workday. "The most important part of my job is to ease the congestion and keep the traffic moving, as the situation in downtown is not so good."

According to Jing'an District police, in about 90 seconds, Chen makes at least 75 directing movements, one every 2.5 seconds on average, and takes 60 to 80 steps, a distance of about 50 to 70 meters. Over two and a half hours, Chen makes about 3,600 directing movements and walks nearly three kilometers.

He also handles traffic accidents and unlawful behavior.

"About 50 small traffic accidents happen in Jing'an District every day," he said. "I also deal with drunk-driving, people who don't fasten seat belts and those who walk through traffic lights."

After two or three months, Chen found that just commanding the traffic didn't ease the congestion.

"Drivers will tell you the traffic sucks. They will complain, saying 'what are you officers doing here? How could it be such a jam!'," Chen said. "Of course as a traffic cop, it doesn't make you very happy."

Chen started to develop new methods of control, like setting up a temporary waiting area.

"Major congestion on my crossroad occurs on one lane of Jiaozhou Road, where cars run from north to south," Chen said. "As the wider Beijing Road W. is a heavy-duty lane, lots of cars choose to run through Jiaozhou Road and take a left turn to Beijing Road W. But some other cars run to Jing'an Temple and Xujiahui in the west, and they take right turns to Beijing Road W.," he said.

"One lane slows the whole thing up," Chen said. "Since there is only one lane from north to south and cars either turn left or right, cars can't make a right turn as long as there is one car stopped in front at the red light, waiting for a left turn."

"Previously, when the nearby Wanhangdu Road hadn't been widened from one lane in each direction to three, the traffic flow was worse. More cars chose Jiaozhou Road."

Chen took his stopwatch to work to check the traffic flow.

"I found that the ratio of cars turning left to cars turning right was three to seven. At each red light, there were three cars waiting for a left turn, and they blocked the seven cars behind wanting to turn right," he said.

"We just needed to move the three left-turn cars forward during the red light. The cars behind could then turn right, which made the whole traffic on Jiaozhou Road run smoother."

Chen said the solution made sense since most private cars are 4.7 to 4.8 meters long and it was possible to make a temporary "parking lot" at the small crossroad.

About 15 to 17 cars run through Jiaozhou Road during a one and a half minute green light, Chen said. When his new method was adopted, seven to 10 cars could turn during a red light.

"It helps drivers feel they are not waiting, even at a red light. They are always moving ahead," Chen added.

Chen kept trying different methods to ease traffic flow and not all were successful.

"When you put a bus into the wrong lane so it's difficult to make a left turn, all the passengers complain about you," Chen said. "Sometimes I had to direct the bus to go backward after it'd already gone forward. People start to think the cop is a fool."

The continual traffic experiments took Chen, his supervisors and colleagues about three months to perfect.

Chen has been on the job for three years but is less experienced than many of his colleagues. But, like them, he has already tasted the hardships of a policeman's lot.

"During the heavy snow of last winter, snow melted in our shoes and froze our feet. We couldn't tell whether our feet had become tired because they were numb," Chen said. "Only when you took a break in the box and got warm, could you feel how the feet hurt.

"In hot weather, the sweating never stops. And when a car zips by, wow, it's so cool!" Other occupational hazards come from biting the whistle to stop it falling. "Sometimes, when a traffic shift finishes, you feel your teeth go loose," Chen said.

Jing'an District policeman Chang Haiqing knows more. "Also, traffic cops are susceptible to varicose veins, arthritis, over sun-tanned face and an impatient temper," he said. "But Chen Dong is calm most of the time, and that's not easy."

"She salutes to me, and I salute back. We never talk, but her salute is precious to me."

As a result of his overnight fame from the online video, some female office workers and local residents visited the intersection on Jiaozhou Road just to see him.

Chen said he was at first worried the day after the news coverage. "But after a morning rush hour, I felt I was still doing the same job," he said.

"I felt more pressure and worried about my behavior and comments but then I realized it didn't mean being easier with the traffic."

Chen believes a policeman needs to listen to a person's reasons before applying rigid law enforcement. "One day I stopped a fast cab which was about to drive through the red light, a quite dangerous situation at that time," Chen recalled.

He asked the cab driver for an explanation. The nervous man apologized and said his young passenger needed to rush her sick child to the children's hospital on Beijing Road W."

Chen told the cab driver he should have used the emergency light on the cab and consulted the traffic cop on duty.

Small things help Chen get through his day. Such as helping an Australian woman cyclist who waited on the sidewalk every day to get through Jiaozhou Road but no one stopped for her.

"The woman was scared to cross over even during a green light," Chen said. "Each time I saw her, I stopped the traffic to make sure she got safely to the other side."

And each day, he sees a little girl in a silver car on her way to school. "She salutes to me, and I salute back. We never talk, but her salute is precious to me."