Success is a reward for perseverance

Iam very pleased to have been part of the documentary video team marking the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening-up policy.

As lead cameraman, I was probably the person on the team who traveled the most, which allowed me to understand reform and opening-up from a deeper perspective.

I was impressed by Zhao Manzhou and his wife. They are fire scouts at Saihanba National Forest Park who watch part of the forest from a five-story building and report unauthorized flames and smoke to the local fire department.

At one point, Zhao pointed outside the window and said, “There is smoke, cooking smoke.”

With my eyes wide open, I couldn’t find this “cooking smoke”. So I set up a video camera with a 400 mm super-telephoto lens. I finally saw a wisp of smoke on the camera’s screen.

I asked Zhao how he was able to spot the fire.

“I have spent decades living and working here; I know everything about this forest. My eyes have watched this scene for decades, so I can see minor changes,” he said with a smile.

Thirty years ago, the infrastructure at Saihanba was underdeveloped. No water or electricity was supplied to their building, but Zhao and his wife, Chen Xiuling, lived there without those essentials for about 10 months every year.

They maintain a daily log. One of them scouts for fires every 15 minutes — that’s 96 times a day and more than 28,000 times a year, when their vacation is taken into account.

The stories went on, and I was deeply moved. How did China grow so quickly in the past 40 years?

I believe the success belongs to people like Zhao and his wife, who have sacrificed so much to build China and have been willing to work in all conditions for years. Their unstinting efforts and devotion went into building up their country. I think they exemplify why China’s growth has become a miracle.