[sylvesterjay]

The people of Hong Kong were recently astonished to be told that the city’s police force has abandoned mandatory annual fitness testing of its officers. The ostensible pretext was a male officer’s accusation that the varying requirements for male and female officers were discriminatory towards men. What a mamma’s boy. But rather than go fight the little wuss at the Equal Opportunities Commission, the force decided that would be better to scrap the tests altogether. Chubby constables in every police station canteen in town are now chortling over their stir-fried noodles and Cokes.
The tests will be replaced—get this—with a “holistic” program of health and leisure activities that awards points to officers for participation in everything from sports to stamp collecting and handicrafts. A force spokesperson said defended the move, saying, “other forms of engagement such as horticulture, voluntary work and cultural pursuits” were just as beneficial as exercise. But as one nameless senior officer who opposes the reform remarked, “How is being a member of a stamp-collecting club or a knitting circle going to prepare you in any way for chasing an armed robber?”
Making the situation even more absurd is the fact that the now abolished test was hardly the stuff of Herculean toil. Officers simply had to run 2.4-km or walk 4.8-kilometre to time, which are things that careworn marketing execs and pallid P.A.s pay good money to do at my local gym every day.
A piece of advice to tourists and citizenry: if you get mugged in a Kowloon back street, don’t bother calling the puffing fatsos in uniform. Give chase yourself.

http://time-blog.com/china_blog/2007...n_officer.html

[sunniefaith]

Soon, you'll see them at every Krispy Kreme wolfing down donuts and looking like one too!

[PDLM]

Originally Posted by sunniefaith

Soon, you'll see them at every Krispy Kreme wolfing down donuts and looking like one too!

Er, pot meet kettle...

[jayinhongkong]

Originally Posted by PDLM

Er, pot meet kettle...

Ouch!

[sylvesterjay]

Perhaps the police can take "holistic mahjong" classes to keep them occupied at night instead of busting the dickheads that street race down Gloucester Rd...right past the Wan Chai police station no less!!!...every fackin night with their engines screaming and waking everyone up.

Only in HK would someone dare to drive their Ferrari at 200kph past a police station and have the confidence to know the cops won't do a thing.

[XI_YAN]

lol you obviously haven't visited a real third world banana republic yet where the police are underpaid overworked on the take just to make ends meet and whose high ranking officers used to be bomb-throwing revolutionaries

[sylvesterjay]

well I did live in Thailand and when my laptop was stolen there, the police didn't do squat, so good point.

However, I expect more from the police in a "civilized" place like HK.

[freeier]

isn't that precisely what civilised society is about ?
fighting for equality in gender and job treatment etc.etc.etc...

[jayinhongkong]

While I have the utmost respect for the professionalism of the local police, this is a phenomenally bad idea. They definitely need to maintain a certain level of physical fitness. If anything, they should be in better shape rather than worse.