By staff reporter Wang Zhiyong

Zhu Huoshui, a construction worker, stands in front of the China Pavilion at the 2010 Expo Shanghai site on February 26, 2009. Photo by Wang Zhiyong, China.org.cn.

Thirty-year-old migrant worker Zhu Huoshui came back from a meeting with his boss and confirmed that he still had a job on the construction site of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. It was February 26, and Zhu had just returned to Shanghai the previous day after spending the month-long Spring Festival holiday in his hometown in Anhui Province.

"My salary has not changed; it's still 100 yuan [US$15] a day," Zhu told the China.org.cn reporter. "Not many people from the countryside will be able to earn that sort of money this year, because of the economic slowdown. So I am one of the lucky ones."

Zhu said he has been working in cities since 1992. "I was on a salary of less than 10 yuan a day when I started. But even that was much better than what I was earning from farming at the time. There was no way for me to improve my life back home."

"Since then, I have worked in Qingdao, Guangzhou and many other cities but I like Shanghai the most. It has a similar climate to my hometown and even has the same kind of food."

Zhu has just built himself a house back home, a two-story building that cost him 60,000 yuan. "I am going to spend another 50,000 yuan decorating and furnishing it," he said.

Zhu's wife also works in Shanghai, in a factory not far from the Expo site. "We get together on our days off," said Zhu.

Zhu is one of around 10,000 workers working on the construction site of the 2010 Expo, most of them migrant workers from rural areas.

He is one of the beneficiaries of China's rapid urbanization. Working in the construction industry in big cities, he has seen his life change for the better. In a way, he embodies the "Better City, Better Life" slogan of the 2010 World Expo.

But city life itself is facing great challenges. Billions of years' worth of fossil fuels are being rapidly used up, and may not last another hundred years. Facing global warming and the financial crisis, energy-hungry cities may have to ask themselves, how long will the better life last?

(China.org.cn February 27, 2009)