Aerial view of oil wells in the Daqing Oilfield, Heilongjiang Province. [Photo/VCG]

All male employees of State-owned enterprises in China retire at the age of 60. Li Shusen, 65 this year, is no exception. Before his retirement from the Daqing Oilfield Co., Ltd. (DOC) in 2017, he served as the director of the DOC's Service Center and concurrently the director of the Daqing Oilfield Ecological Construction Demonstration Area. In view of the contributions made by Li in office, he was awarded many honors including "Meritorious Employee" and "Outstanding CPC Member." Since retirement, Li has been devoted to the cause of ecological environmental protection as a volunteer. In June 2022, Li was included in the list of winners of China's "Beautiful China, I am a Doer" Award.

Li took charge of the ecological construction work of his company in 1987. Before his retirement in 2017, he had successively presided over and completed ecological projects with a total area of more than 70 square kilometers, including the fourth oil production plant's ecological reservoir, Daqing Petroleum Square, Daqing Oilfield Ecological Park and Daqing Oilfield Ecological Construction Demonstration Area. It is estimated that by the time he retired in 2017, he had worked overtime for ecological construction for at least 13 years. In fact, he suffered a serious spine injury when he was young, and now he still has steel screws and plates in his body. To ease his wife's workload in taking care of their two children, he had to get up early and go to bed late, so as to help out with the household chores. Li was the only child of his parents, so he also had to take care of his ailing mother after work ...