Shen Fusheng, 86, is a retired soldier and former transport worker in the Xinjiang Branch of PetroChina Xinjiang Co Ltd in Karamay, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.[Photo by Xu Wei /China Daily]

Shen Fusheng, 86, is a retired soldier and former transport worker in the Xinjiang Branch of PetroChina Xinjiang Co Ltd in Karamay, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

A former People's Liberation Army soldier, Shen came to Xinjiang under the command of Wang Zhen, the late political leader and former PLA general.

Shen said he and his peers had to withstand tough living conditions as they sought to build a city out of the desert after oil was discovered in the city in 1955.

"Nothing but the strong winds and desert," he said as he recalled life in the beginning of the city's construction. They had to live in pit houses to resist the strong winds and sands in the desert.

Now living in a nursing home in Karamay, Shen said he had no regrets looking back on his life over the years.

"For an elderly person like me, in the past, I had a lot to suffer. But now I have benefitted from the improvement of nursing home systems in the region," he said.