Pursuit of perfection laid path to top legislature

Zou Bin was regarded as a bit of a weirdo when he began working as a bricklayer on a construction site at the age of 16.

While others tried to build walls as quickly as possible because they were paid according to the number of bricks laid, Zou had high standards and pulled his walls down if he thought they weren't good enough.

That pursuit of perfection may explain why he became the first Chinese person to win a prize in bricklaying at WorldSkills, the world championships for vocational skills, in 2015.

Zou, now a deputy at the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress and a quality control manager at China Construction Fifth Engineering Bureau, has not forgotten his past. He pays a lot of attention to migrant workers and has proposed many ideas to help them have better lives.

Born in a village in Xinhua county in Central China's Hunan province in 1995, he embarked on a path different from most of his peers when he decided to drop out of school at 16.

"I was a little rebellious and didn't like learning at school, so I decided to quit school and follow the footsteps of my father and uncles to work as a construction worker," Zou said.

He accompanied them to Changsha, Hunan's provincial capital, and became a migrant worker.

Without any distractions, he worked wholeheartedly to improve his skills.

"I was an introvert and at that time there were no other people of my age on the construction sites I could talk to, so I just concentrated on improving my skills, and practiced again and again," Zou said.

Toiling away as a construction worker was hard work for the teenager.

"It was really laborious," he said. "But considering that when I decided to drop out of school my parents checked my willingness repeatedly, and told me I had to be responsible for my own life, I knew I had to carry on. I pushed myself to endure all the hardships."

Zou also remembers the unstable nature of migrant workers' lives, mentioning that he only stayed at any site for three months at most before moving on to the next, taking long-distance buses and carrying all of his daily necessities.

"For me, being very young at that time, it was not very decent," Zou said, adding that he was reluctant to discuss his job with other people at the time.

But nowadays, when he wanders the places where he worked, he sees many skyscrapers and feels a sense of pride when he thinks of the walls and roads he has built.

His efforts helped him to master bricklaying skills and win recognition from others. In 2014, a person he often worked for at China Construction Fifth Engineering Bureau recommended he take part in a construction skills competition. He signed up and won a championship at just 18.

"It was a turning point in my life," Zou said.

Winning the championship gave him the opportunity to take part in the 43rd WorldSkills Competition. After receiving training, he won a prize in the international event's bricklaying competition.

In 2018, Zou was elected as a deputy to the NPC, becoming part of a trend that is seeing more deputies hail from the grassroots, especially workers, farmers and skilled professionals.

"I started working as a migrant worker, so I want to be a voice for them," said Zou, who has visited many construction sites as an NPC deputy to talk to workers and learn about their situations.

He has found the government is now offering more opportunities for them to receive training and take part in competitions to improve their skills. And people are more eager to improve and show their skills.

Over the years, he has submitted a number of motions related to the welfare of migrant workers. Last year, he proposed promoting the development of migrant workers, especially to cultivate more talented people to make prefabricated buildings.

"Such a way of building is adapted to the needs of the modern times," Zou said. "From the perspective of migrant workers, it enables them to work in factories most of the time instead of moving from here to there. As a result, it's easier for their employers to pay social insurance for them.

"Speaking up for migrant workers was my original aspiration, and it's never changed. I will continue to work in the construction industry, learn to improve myself, know about the trends of industrial development, set an example to my colleagues and others, and help them earn more opportunities for better development."