A choice careerBorn in Harbin, the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province, long before board secretaries officially existed in mainland China, Zhang Yongjian did not choose a career as a board secretary - rather the board secretarial career chose him.

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His main passion as a child was the sea. 'When I was in primary and secondary school, I spent all my spare time making ship models,' he says. Harbin is a long way from the sea and Zhang didn't actually get to see the sea until August 1966 when he was travelling by train from Harbin to Beijing. Nevertheless, from his early childhood he had set his heart on working in the shipping industry. His determination was severely tested in those early years since the cultural revolution saw him 'sent to the countryside' like many of his generation and he spent several years in the cold northern wilderness of Heilongjiang province. 1 went to the great northern wilderness taking two self-made ship models with me,' Zhang says. The models did not survive his cultural revolution experiences, but Zhang never lost sight of his goal.