Bai Yujing, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) and head of the drainage maintenance team at the Liaoyuan Water Affairs Group in Northeast China's Jilin province, has spent 28 years clearing catch basins, crawling through pipes, dredging silt and removing blockages. She has voluntarily helped old residential communities across 14 subdistricts resolve more than 6,000 sewage overflow incidents and upgrade the drainage systems of over 200 buildings.

Bai Yujing (right) and her co-worker are at the cleaning site. [Photo provided by the Jilin Provincial People's Congress]

In 1998, at the age of 21, Bai graduated from a secondary vocational school and was assigned to the drainage cleaning department. On her second day on the job, she joined her coworkers in the early morning to clear stormwater grates. Local merchants often dumped kitchen waste into the grates, and after a day of fermenting, the waste gave off such a foul stench when the grates were opened that she could barely stand it.

Soon she faced an even greater challenge — descending into the big manholes. In the height of summer, she pulled on an airtight rubber wader suit, lifted the heavy iron cover weighing roughly 50 kilograms, and lowered herself down the ladder, rope in hand. When the ladder ended and there was no footing left, she had to jump into waist-deep sewage. Kneeling on the manhole floor, with her legs braced in the side pipes and her back pressed against the wall, she scooped out the sludge shovel by shovel and hoisted it up bucket by bucket, until she had filled 19 buckets.

"Every job in this world has to be done by someone, so it might as well by me." Today, new equipment, such as remotely operated grab trucks, flow meters and velocity gauges, and trenchless repair techniques like UV-cured and resin lining, make it possible to fix pipes without digging up the roads.

A few years ago, inspired by a child's toy cart, Bai had a small dredging trolley welded together, complete with wheels, a bucket, and a rope. With one worker inside the pipe and another outside, the team could dredge, load, haul out, dump and return in one smooth operation. This "invention" was later promoted as a good practice in other cities.

Bai Yujing (first from the right) explains to her co-workers the functions related to the smart drainage platform. [Photo provided to National People's Congress]

As an NPC deputy, Bai's journey of service began the day she was "pulled up from the bottom of a manhole." "An ordinary sewer worker could walk into the Great Hall of the People — isn't that democracy?"

At first, she felt that "democracy" was too grand a word, something far removed from her life. After attending study and training sessions organized by the NPC and the Jilin Provincial People's Congress, she came to understand that speaking up for workers, voicing people’s concern and contributing to national development and policymaking are practice of whole-process people's democracy. To live up to that trust, she kept learning as she worked, studying legal provisions and policy theories in her spare time, familiarizing herself with the NPC's rules of procedure and working methods, and teaching herself how to conduct research.

"Ultimately, high-quality development is about making people's lives more comfortable, more secure and more sustainable in the long run." She explains the policies she has learned to the public, serving as a bridge between the people and the government.

Bai Yujing (first from the left) is in Beishou subdistrict to learn from the public about their opinions and suggestions on grassroots governance and urban renewal. [Photo provided to National People's Congress]

While clearing a drain one day, she learned of a resident's concerns about the hygiene of food ordered online. After talking with delivery riders about food transportation and disinfection measures, she submitted a suggestion on regulating the online food delivery industry to the annual NPC session in 2025, which was in alignment with the tasks listed in the Government Work Report about strengthening regulation on food and drug.

In 2025, focusing on care for, medical support and well-being of seniors, she carried out in-depth research in communities, nursing homes and medical institutions. She listened to the concerns of elderly residents, eldercare workers and community staff, carefully noting problems such as gaps in eldercare facilities and the lack of age-friendly renovations.

Many seniors shared with her their "three hopes" for attentive care from communities and volunteers, for warm mutual support among neighbors and for professional care institutions that combine medical treatment with elderly care.

After careful review and refinement, she submitted to the NPC annual session in 2026 a suggestion on systematically building a care system with Chinese characteristics for the elderly and providing targeted support for seniors to enjoy their later years. The same year, she also submitted a suggestion on increasing support for ecological conservation in the Dongliao River Basin.

Over nearly four years of service, Bai has put forward four motions and 33 suggestions on people's livelihood, many of which have been adopted and put into effect.

Bai Yujing (first from the right) attends a symposium held by the deputy liaison station of Nankang subdistrict to solicit opinions and suggestions from the public. [Photo provided to National People's Congress]

"We are like roots driven deep into the soil. The deeper the roots go, the closer we are to the people, and the more at ease we feel," she said.

Looking ahead, she plans to focus her research on people's livelihood protection, community governance and accessible public services, and to put forward more suggestions that are "down-to-earth, full of genuine warmth and uplifting to the spirit."