Fossils and dreams

He had visions of being a scientist, but this migrant from Sichuan settled for the next best thing. Wang Kaihao learns his story.

Not everyone who yearns to be a scientist can be one. Ding Jinzhao found happiness being almost one.

Sitting at a workstation for hours staring at rocks under the microscope and cleaning them with tools of all shapes and sizes, Ding is a technician who prepares fossil specimens.

Though this man from the countryside in Dazhou, Sichuan province, has worked at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 15 years, his job title is still "technician".

"It's all right. I love this job," he smiles. "I am glad to be one of the first to see the fossils. It also gives me chance to communicate with many scientists and learn things the public does not have access to."

Ding says he could not have imagined what he is today when he first graduated from high school in 1997. He had to give up the national college entrance examination because his family could not afford the fees.

"My family wasn't able to support my tuition and I only wanted to find a job in the big cities and make money," Ding recalls.

A fellow villager got him a job at a Beijing-based workshop of the CAS to assemble dinosaur skeletons, and he was paid 500 yuan ($80) per month.

"I knew next to nothing about paleontology when I first came. As a boy from the countryside, I didn't get a chance to know much about science."

Nevertheless, Ding says dinosaurs always fascinated him as a child. He volunteered to prepare some fossils once late at night and was switched to his current position three years later.

He later obtained a junior college diploma for specimen treatment from Capital Normal University in 2010. "I have to keep learning. Knowledge is the key."

He also uses his spare time reading scientific magazines and even contributes a few articles on fossil-specimen treatment to the journals.

"I am not a nerd," he smiles. "I like sports, like the World Cup and European (soccer) Championships. I also play football and basketball with my colleagues, but we don't play often because of work."

He feels luckier than many other migrant workers because he has a more stable job.

Ding travels around the country as part of field scientific investigations and what he sees saddens him.

Villagers in some poor areas excavate fossils illegally for a living, and that damages the site.

"Many of them could become technicians if they have professional training, but lack of education - that makes all the difference."

Ding married his colleague Wu Yong in 2004, and they live in a cabin in the backyard of the workshop in Changping district. Together, the couple earns a little more than 6,000 yuan ($953) a month.

Several natural science museums have offered Ding high salaries to move. In 2006, one museum from Wu's hometown of Chongqing municipality even promised them an apartment as well. However, Ding refused the offers.

"I don't want to give up my job."

But his reluctance to move has created friction at home, mainly because their 7-year old daughter is ready for school.

"It's impossible for us to afford a house in Beijing, or to become permanent residents," Wu says. "And our daughter won't be able to go into high school here."

As part of the solution, the Dings bought an apartment in Chongqing recently for 500,000 yuan ($79,450), and they now have to pay a monthly housing note of 2,600 yuan.

"When our daughter goes to high school, I have to quit this job and move back there," Wu says, although Ding insists he will not leave.

"Maybe we have to live apart then, but we haven't thought about that. There are still a few more years to go."

Currently, their daughter, Xinran, is at a school that's a 10-minute drive away. Ding invested 40,000 yuan for a car, but he hardly uses it except to pick Xinran up from school.

"When we go downtown, we prefer to take the bus and subway," Ding says. "You know how high the price of oil is."

Perhaps Xinran is too young to understand how tough life is, but she is very proud of her father.

"I admire my father's work," the girl says in Beijing accent. "He is so great! I want to be a doctor in the future, but if I can prepare fossils like my father, it will also be wonderful!"

Ding, meanwhile, has high hopes for his daughter:"I hope she could go to college in the future and work in an office rather than be a blue collar like me."

But Ding is proud of what he is. He says fossil work will be his lifetime career.

"Maybe I have a little vanity, but I can always tell others I am serving science. And, more importantly, I will use my knowledge to win their respect."

Contact the writer at wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn.