HAIKOU, May 3 (Xinhua) -- Imagine playing spot-the-difference games to find an unknown number of differences between hundreds of blueprints and thousands of machine components, all within a time limit of several hours.
Now imagine doing it in an environment with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.
Such is the daily work of Hu Cheng, chief engineer of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Hainan Power Generation Co., Ltd, formerly known as the Yangpu power plant. It is located in the Yangpu Economic Development Zone, south China's Hainan Province.
Having worked and lived in Yangpu for nearly three decades, the 53-year-old engineer has witnessed the rise of a former fishing village to the forefront of Hainan's, and China's, opening up.
Yangpu was once an economic backwater where 25,000 fishermen and farmers were mired in grinding poverty. Its fate changed in 1992, when China approved the establishment of the Yangpu Economic Development Zone to boost the development of Hainan.
In 1994, Hu travelled more than 3,000 km from northeast China's Liaoning Province, then the nation's heavy-industry heartland, to work at the then world-class power plant in the island province.
"I was interested in the advanced technology to be used by the power plant," he said.
When he arrived, the construction of the economic development zone was still at a very early stage. Many places in Yangpu had no access to electricity, not to mention modern industrial facilities.
"I remember seeing cattle and sheep everywhere," Hu recalled.
After the power plant was put into operation, Hu's work was to check all the equipment regularly. In case of a system breakdown, he had to find the cause from hundreds of possible factors within the space of hours at night, to ensure that the system could restart the next day.
At the beginning, the repair work relied heavily on the instructions and advice of foreign experts.
"Due to limited communication options back then, we contacted overseas experts either by phone or by fax. Every phone call needed a reservation in advance," he said.
However, solving urgent problems and restarting the power system was a race against time. That was the main motivation for Hu to become an expert himself, mostly by self-learning in his spare time.
The hard part was that all the reading materials about the power system were in English. With the help of an English dictionary and his previous contacts with foreign experts, Hu mastered the operation of the system and even translated an over-200-page instruction manual into Chinese to help other workers understand the system.
Thanks to Hu's efforts, the Yangpu power plant has become one of the biggest in Hainan, helping electrify local development and the ongoing construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port (FTP).
"When I first came here in 1994, it took five hours to drive from the provincial capital Haikou to Yangpu. Now it only takes two hours by car thanks to newly built highways and bridges," Hu said, testifying to Yangpu's accelerated development in recent years.
"There used to be only one kindergarten in Yangpu when my daughter was young. Now, there are more kindergartens with much better facilities."
In 2020, China released a master plan to build the whole of Hainan Island into a globally influential and high-level free trade port by the middle of the century. Since then, a slew of favorable policies have been issued to support the FTP development, including zero tariffs and easing market and foreign investment access.
"Hainan's talent introduction policy has also helped us hire more skilled engineers. I think with the development of the FTP, more people will choose Hainan as their place of work and life," said Hu. ■
