In the No.711 Research Institute, Han Hua was dubbed "Iron Lady" by her colleagues.

Testing machines on board is such an exhausting task that even man sometimes cannot endure the exertion. However, Han Hua, a woman engineer, has never drawn back from this demanding job. Once in a hot summer, Han was assigned alone to test the research institute's first automatic monitoring system on a ship for export. While the temperature went up to 40 Celsius degrees, it was as hot and humid as inside a boiler in the cabin. Adding to thunderously roaring of the machines, it made one dizzy. The customers worried whether Han Hua, a woman from Shanghai, could bear all these hardships. "It would be disastrous if she failed in doing the job," they thought.

Under the stares of all the people around, Han entered the cabin, checking the circuits, testing devices and debugging the whole system again and again. When she reappeared outside the cabin, people saw her face covered with greasy oil and her clothes soaked by sweats. After a whole month's painstaking work, the ship passed the examinations all in one time. When she was leaving, the ship owner said satisfactorily: "Shanghai girl, well done!"

The No.711 Research Institute with Han Hua at the core is a well-recognized "National Team" in the circle of ship cabin autonomous technology. Han said: "The strategy of rejuvenating China through Science and Education has endowed a valuable opportunity for us to stand in the front line of the modernization drive. Only by working hard and dedicating to innovation can we deserve this nice opportunity."

Han felt the heavy responsibility on her shoulders after she took the managerial position as the institute's deputy director. She repeatedly stressed that all employees should enhance their sense of market-orientation so as to invite in more orders and contracts. A few days before the May 1 weeklong holiday this year, an ocean salvage ship had some malfunction in its automatic system and asked the institute for help. But the chief technician used to be in charge of this technology had left the institute, and no one else could take up the task. Han finally reached the technician through roundabout trips and persuaded her to give up her vocation to debug the system for the customer. Two days after the rescue ship was repaired, an air disaster took place in Dalian. When Han's colleagues found the ship was at work in the disaster site, they could not help claiming that she had indeed done a wonderful job.

In recent years, Han has been rewarded a lot of honorary titles, such as the Shanghai Ten Outstanding Youth and the Municipal Women Pace-setter. Han remains modest. She said, "I am an ordinary person. Only by working harder can I live up with these praises." Han knows that she has to shoulder more responsibilities since she is a delegate to the CPC 16th Congress. She believes that scientific researchers and technological personnel will make bigger progress under the guidance of the current CPC congress.

(China.org.cn translated by Alex Xu, November 14, 2002)