In Arabic, the word Saudi Arabia means the desert of happiness. Most of the country's land is desert, which is hot and hot all year round. Living in the desert is hard work, but the builders from Chinese companies have to build high-speed railways, highways, ports, and buildings on the long yellow sand... They sweat here and use their hard-working youth to contribute to the friendly cooperation between China and Saudi Arabia.

China Harbor Yang Zhiyuan

Yang Zhiyuan is now the general manager of China Harbor Middle East Regional Management Center. In 2009, he went to work in Saudi Arabia for the first time. Later, the number of local projects of the company continued to increase, and it became more and more necessary for experienced talents like him to stay in the local area and lead other young people to do projects. This stay is 14 years.

The construction site where Yang Zhiyuan was stationed for the first time belonged to the Zawar Port project, which was later renamed Haier Port. Our first job was bulldozing the sand dunes by the sea to set up camp and prefab. The harsh environment at that time far exceeded our expectations. Under the scorching sun, the average temperature is close to 50 degrees Celsius, and there is no shade in the desert. he recalled.

Yang Zhiyuan and his colleagues started from scratch and overcame various difficulties to complete the construction of the port in 5 years. Today, Haier Port has become the most important port in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula. Yang Zhiyuan said that when we finally left Haier Port, it was already a city with bright lights and complete facilities. Compared with the scene when we first arrived here, it can be said to be a world-shaking change. The sense of accomplishment that comes from my heart makes me very moved every time I think about it.

Liu Wei, China Railway Eighteenth Bureau

Similar to Yang Zhiyuan, Liu Weigang joined the work for two years when he received the task of going to Saudi Arabia to participate in the construction of the Mecca-Medina high-speed railway (Mai-Medina high-speed railway) in 2010. Now 38 years old, he is still struggling in Saudi Arabia and has become a project executive deputy manager of the Saudi company of China Railway Eighteenth Bureau Group.

Liu Wei clearly remembers that during the construction of the high-speed rail, the Mecca Station Bridge was the biggest difficulty: the bridge is located in an earthquake zone, and at the same time faces harsh construction conditions such as high temperature and frequent sandstorms. Our prefabricated box girder model suffered extensive cracking in such an extreme environment. Liu Wei recalled that later he and his team set up a research team, and after countless experiments, they finally found a solution.

Together with the scorching sun and steel bars all day long, Liu Wei and his colleagues built this high-speed railway with the highest design speed per hour in the desert area of the world in the vast desert and thousands of ravines. The 450-kilometer-long Maimai high-speed railway can reach a top speed of 360 kilometers per hour, shortening the travel time from Mecca to Medina from 4 hours to 2 hours, greatly relieving local traffic pressure and showing Chinese wisdom to the world and Chinese speed.

Power China Wu Qiwei

The 39-year-old Wu Qiwei is a veteran who has been stationed abroad for 14 years, and has left footprints of struggle in many countries. Now he is a project manager of POWERCHINA Saudi New Future City (NEOM) pile foundation project.

During the NEOM bidding stage, the new crown epidemic was raging in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of the risk of infection, Wu Qiwei went back and forth between the station and the project site about 1,800 kilometers apart many times. There are no food and accommodation facilities in the desert where the project is located, and every time I eat, I have to go to a small town 60 kilometers away. In order to save time, he often plunged into the desert with only bread and water to learn about the project's geology and resource supply, and finally obtained various real data of the construction area, which provided an important reference for winning the bid at a reasonable price.

In Saudi Arabia, there are still many builders of Chinese companies like Yang Zhiyuan, Liu Wei and Wu Qiwei who have dedicated their youth overseas. Their stories are different, but they all have the same spirit: heavy responsibility, responsibility, hard work, and dedication. Just as Yang Zhiyuan said: Seeing the constant trains on the railway and the orderly traffic on the wide highway, we are sincerely happy for the development of Saudi Arabia, and we are even more proud of our contribution to it. We will continue to contribute to China-Saudi Arabia cooperation with our own efforts.Editor/Ma Xue