Chinese executive who is the soul of Vietnam rail project

Known as "workaholic", 39-year-old Yu Jiang from China has been dedicated to the construction of the first urban elevated railway in Vietnam's capital Hanoi for the past five years.

Since the construction of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway project in Hanoi started in 2011, Yu often went on business trips to Vietnam.

From January 2015, Yu then moved to work in Vietnam as project manager of the Cat Linh-Ha Dong railway project, taking charge of the project's quality, progress, external relations, among other responsibilities.

The Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban elevated railway route has a total length of 13.5 km and runs through 12 stations. The sixth bureau of China Railway Engineering Corporation is the EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) contractor of the elevated railway project.

As project manager, Yu, the hardworking engineer, hardly ever goes on holiday. "My leisure activities include exercise and learning Vietnamese and English," he said.

In other people's eyes, Yu is a "workaholic." He almost takes no rest at the weekends either. Though the company allows him to have 10 days off for holidays every three months, Yu has rarely returned to China, except for the traditional Lunar New Year festival and business meetings. Working daytimes seems not to be enough for Yu, either.

"After dinner, I often come back to the office to finish documents, which have not been completed during the daytime," Yu said. Besides office work, Yu spends a lot of time on inspecting the construction site.

"Only field inspections can help us find out potential problems and figure out measures to solve them during construction," Yu said.

"In Vietnam, land use rights are permanent, therefore it is difficult to relocate private houses along the rail route. We had to conduct many inspections so as to bring out the final adjustment of the design," he said.

During his stay in Vietnam, Yu has spent time on studying languages.

"I have no problem reading documents written in Vietnamese and communicating with my Vietnamese business partners in their language," Yu said, adding that he now always makes phone calls to some minister-level Vietnamese officials, in Vietnamese.

"I know almost everything, including the number of Vietnamese provinces and cities, even the number of banks in the country. When I talk to my Vietnamese business partners, they are all surprised about my understanding of Vietnam," he said.

"For me, working and learning are kind of fun, not a burden. How to perfectly balance life and work is also a kind of art," Yu said.

"Yu's professional life has seen him work far away from home for nine years. My daughter often asks me 'When will you come home'. I can only say, 'I don't know'."

The project is also expected to help in accumulating experience for similar projects in the future in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China, he said.