When Xu Tao first arrived in Chamdo, Xizang autonomous region, in 2016, he did not expect that the plateau city would become the place where he would build his career, start a family and raise a child.

Xu, from Shangluo, Shaanxi province, graduated from Weinan Normal University. After graduation, he worked in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region for a period of time.

Later, after hearing that some of his classmates and seniors had found suitable platforms for personal development in Xizang, he also became curious about the distant region. That year he came to Chamdo through open recruitment and joined the State Grid Chamdo Power Supply Co.

Xu's decision marked a turning point in his own life. It also placed him within a much broader story.

Data shows that by 2024, over the past 30 years of paired-up assistance to Xizang, 10 batches of nearly 12,000 officials and professionals had been selected and sent to work on the plateau. At the same time young people like Xu have also come to Xizang through open recruitment, talent introduction programs or enterprise hiring mechanisms, taking root in sectors such as electricity, education, healthcare and transportation, and integrating their personal choices into Xizang's development.

After arriving in Chamdo, Xu worked on rotation at substations, power plants and the power dispatching and control center. At that time, Chamdo's power grid was developing rapidly.

Xu recalled that between 2017 and 2019, what impressed him most was that "a substation seemed to be put into operation every few days". In his view, the priority at that stage was to solve the question of whether power supply was available at all.

As more substations were put into operation, Chamdo's power grid entered a new stage.

Since the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), the focus has gradually shifted from "whether it exists" to "how good it is". Construction standards have been aligned with State Grid standards, while technological upgrades, infrastructure operation and maintenance, and distribution network automation have been advanced to improve power supply reliability.

For Xu, this means that power work is no longer just about delivering electricity to more places, but making the grid more stable, reliable and capable of supporting local production and daily life.

Over the past decade, Xu has grown from a front-line duty officer to a professional manager and now to a management position at the dispatching and control center.

He said the power industry is closely related to people's livelihoods and local economic development — and what matters most is perseverance. Looking back, Xu said his own growth has taken place in step with the development of Chamdo and Xizang's power grid.

Work is not the only thing that has changed Xu's life over the past decade.

His wife, also from Shaanxi, graduated from his alma mater. In 2016, Xu came to Chamdo first to "test the waters".

A year later his wife also arrived through Chamdo's education talent introduction program and became a primary school mathematics teacher at a village school in Karub district.

One works at the dispatching center, safeguarding the city's power grid; the other stands on a village school platform, accompanying children as they grow. The couple came from Shaanxi to Chamdo, where they have worked and had a child, who is not yet two years old.

Xu said they plan to continue working in Chamdo for the long term and hope their child can study by their side in the future. For them, Xizang is no longer just a workplace, but a home where they are putting down roots.

Looking back on the past decade, Xu said he has "no regrets". At first he also felt uncertain about the distance, the remoteness, and the high altitude.

However, over time, he found his place and integrated his personal development into the broader development of the company, the locality and the country. Behind such development are countless ordinary people like Xu who have stayed at their posts: some build roads, some teach, some treat patients, and some safeguard the power grid.

Xu compares himself to an "ordinary screw" on a vehicle. What matters most, he said, is to "settle down, bend down, and persevere in ordinary work". It is precisely such quiet perseverance, firmly rooted in ordinary posts across the plateau, that helps support a brighter, more stable and warmer life in today's Xizang.

Zhong Yutong contributed to this story.