Soundbites

Editor's note: The State Council Information Office held a news conference on Friday, featuring representatives from the transportation sector as part of its "Forging Ahead on the New Journey" series.

For more than 30 years, I have maintained roads in northern Xizang at an average altitude above 4,500 meters. In 2020, floods destroyed a bridge, leaving patients unable to reach medical care. After a week of working through the rain, we put up an emergency steel bridge. Hearing people thank us as they crossed made all the hardship worthwhile.

Samdrup, head of the Jiali maintenance section at Nagchu, Xizang autonomous region

My mentors taught me that protecting this vital infrastructure means tightening every screw and checking every control point, day after day. Once, during peak traffic, we handled a control problem in less than 30 minutes between ship passages. To prevent similar problems, we checked more than 200 related control parameters that night.

Hu Hang, deputy head of the maintenance department at the Three Gorges Navigation Authority

As rescue and salvage divers, protecting one more life is our greatest value. In 2020, six teammates and I boarded a ship carrying hazardous chemicals after it had an accident and caught fire. We worked on a deck hotter than 50 C. Over four days and nights, we transferred more than 3,000 metric tons of hazardous chemicals and towed the vessel to port before the typhoon arrived.

Hu Jian, head of the diving team at the salvage engineering fleet of Shanghai Salvage Company

I won gold as the only female competitor in rail vehicle technology at this year's WorldSkills Competition. Many people call this exhausting physical work, but it is more about patience, attention to detail and creativity. Over the next five years, I hope to grow from a competitor into a coach and pass on my experience.

He Xiaoman, a student at Changchun Digital Technology Vocational College, Jilin province

When I started driving a truck, I simply wanted to support my family. One snowy day in 2018, delivering supplies to a mountain village took an entire day instead of the usual three hours. An elderly villager brought me a bowl of steaming cured meat. All the hardship suddenly felt worthwhile. My truck connects my own family with the villagers' families.

Yin Wenxue, head of the Yin Wenxue Pioneer Trucking Fleet, Gansu province