With welding sparks cascading around his head and the Bird's Nest looming regally behind him, 53-year-old Li Zhongfu rubs some of the dirt off his face and blows a thick plume of smoke in front of him,
"I wouldn't say we are 'special'," he said, referring to the army of workers building the National Stadium, the centerpiece of next summer's Beijing Games. "We just have a job to do, and we get on with it and do it."
With history literally in the making behind him, Li, who has spent three years toiling on the Bird's Nest, chose not to bemoan his status as one of China's unsung army of workers drafted in from the provinces to get Beijing looking like an Olympic city by August 8.
It is his 34th year in the capital, he says, and he misses his wife's home cooking more each day. When he retires in two years' time, he's booking a one-way ticket back to his hometown.
"I miss my family," he said.
Li arrived in Beijing in 1974 as a soldier. After retiring from the army, he spent six years working underground on Beijing's first subway line before moving up in the world.
Now he belongs to a swelling sub-group of migrant workers that is estimated to make up about one-third of Beijing's total population. Some are office staff, many are laborers.
Local officials decided to honor the city's migrant construction workers on Christmas Day with a photo exhibition at the Olympic Green.
The municipal government officially opened the exhibition opposite the Bird's Nest almost four years to the day after construction work began. The stadium is due to be completed in March.
Until it goes on a national tour, those lucky enough to be given access to the exhibition can look at the 80 magazine-size color photos depicting men at work -- often covered in white paint or struggling under the weight of heavily laden bamboo poles.
The exhibition organizers said that 160,000 workers, mainly from heavily populated Henan Province in Central China, or from Sichuan in the Southwest, have worked at the 31 newly completed and renovated Olympic venues in Beijing.
Six other venues, including a new stadium for soccer events in Olympic co-host city Tianjin, are spread across China.
"Ninety percent of the lads here are from Henan," said Li. "I'm the only one from my family in Beijing." Workers are paid between 50 to 80 yuan ($7-11) per day, he said.
Wang Yizhong, chief of Li's division from Beijing Urban Construction Group, said that, unlike many reported cases in the capital, his team is always paid on time.
"We are never worried about money," he said.
