50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 517 Preparations before leaving
Sun Zhiwei turned to leave, but Xu Yimin called him back: "Wait a minute, your little Hongying is doing her internship on the second floor. Go check on her, she's doing a great job."

The translation office is located on the west side of the second floor, but it's not as large as it used to be, with only a dozen or so people.

As the number of countries with which we have foreign relations increases, the translation tasks have become more and more demanding. As a result, the translation office has expanded several times over compared to its early days, with young people making up the majority of the staff.

This place has the largest number of people outside of overseas offices and administrative departments, and it is also the place that produces the most talented people. Many leaders are from the translation and interpretation field.

Sun Hongying is currently undergoing secondary training with the foreign affairs translation team, which involves transforming book knowledge into work skills, just like she did back then.

When Sun Zhiwei arrived on the second floor, he saw Ren Dongmei in a small conference room, teaching a group of young colleagues quick-start techniques for simultaneous interpretation.

She was using the same set of teaching materials that Sun Zhiwei had passed down to her years ago, only the content was more detailed. Sun Hongying was among the young people studying them.

This was like a mini-class, and Sun Hongying was very active in class, answering Ren Dongmei's questions from time to time.

Looking at Xiao Hongying, who was less than 1.6 meters tall, bouncing around among a group of young people, Sun Zhiwei also had a bit of a headache.

The family isn't lacking in nutrition, and he himself isn't short. Although Tong Jiajia isn't tall, even if you take everything into account, she should be over 160cm.

Now, the girl is almost 21 years old, and the chances of her growing taller in the future are very slim. He can only hope for the next generation.

If there's any advantage to being short, the only one he can think of is that right now, there's a special top-level translation position that requires candidates to be short.

Sun Hongying is likely to stand out from a large number of candidates because of this. As for whether she will be selected in the end, she will need to have excellent professional skills, which depends on herself.

All he could guarantee was that the family background check would be fine; his family had been incredibly successful for two generations.

Such a background is extremely rare in the translation community, because in the past, very few people who could learn foreign languages ​​well came from privileged backgrounds.

Seeing that everyone was focused in class, Sun Zhiwei didn't interrupt them, but went directly to the resource room.

He needs to research information on several African countries to prepare for his upcoming trip.

Throughout Africa, the main diamond-producing regions are located in the south, including the three most important areas: South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.

Among them, the Premier deposit in South Africa was the first place in the world where a primary diamond deposit was discovered.

It is famous for producing world-renowned large diamonds, such as the Cullinan (3106 carats), the Noble Diamond (999.2 carats), and the Jungle Diamond (726 carats).

Botswana has seven developed and mature diamond mines, including the world's largest mine by area and the mine with the highest mineral value.

Among them, the Givanen mine is the world's most valuable diamond mine, with resources amounting to 1.7 million carats.

Namibia has the world’s largest diamond placer deposits, with more than 95% of the diamonds being gem-quality.

Besides these three locations, Tanzania, Zaire, Ghana, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone also have rich diamond deposits.

Many other countries in the world also have diamond mines, such as Russia, Australia, Canada, India, and mainland China.

Among them, the mines in Russia and Canada are remote and of average quality; the reserves in India are depleted, and they don't want to mine their own land.

The only place that could pique his interest was Australia, whose Algae region has the world's richest diamond reserves.

The lamprophyre formations in northern Western Australia produce vibrant rose, pink, and a small number of blue diamonds. He knew of a high-clarity 3.5-carat rose-colored diamond that sold for a staggering $350 million.

A 3.5-carat diamond, no bigger than a fingernail, can fetch such a high price even when diamond prices are currently low, demonstrating the rarity of colored diamonds.

He definitely wants to get some of these rare diamonds, but of course, he won't keep the raw colored diamonds in his own diamond mine.

These colored diamonds are formed from unique lamprophyre formations, which differ from the formation mechanism of other diamonds.

He didn't want his small diamond mine to attract the attention of geologists from all over the world.

Sun Zhiwei's credentials now grant him a high level of access; aside from a few confidential document rooms, he can now access most documents in the document room on the 4th floor.

This time, it's just an investigation of a few small African countries, so there's no need to apply for higher authority.

Our family has been providing aid to these small African countries since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

This includes providing military assistance to Zambia, infrastructure assistance to Tanzania and Sudan, and medical assistance to Tanzania and Algeria.

The aid has not stopped until now, but the long-term unpaid aid has had a great impact on our family, so in recent years it has gradually been changed to paid aid.

This long-term, selfless aid has indeed brought us considerable benefits.

For example, in the UN General Assembly, our African brothers were able to take the lead in cheering for us, and they also made great efforts to help us regain our seats;

Later, because Africa is rich in mineral resources, it also provided abundant resources for our country's development.

And then there's Djibouti, which later provided us with our only overseas base, allowing us to control the energy route through the Red Sea.

The predecessors planted the trees so that the successors could enjoy the shade; this is the reward for our silent efforts in the past.

In the African section of the archives, Sun Zhiwei found information on South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia.

Among these, only Botswana has the most complete information on establishing diplomatic relations with me, while South Africa has less information, and Namibia has only recently broken away from South Africa's rule and has not yet formally established itself as a country.

Currently, we do not have direct flights with any of the three companies mentioned above. If you want to go there, you can only transit through other countries.

Sun Zhiwei's biggest find was the map of the three locations, which even marked the locations of several large diamond mines.

With a map, he can plan his route effectively and avoid getting lost. He doesn't speak any African languages, so if he gets lost, he won't be able to ask the locals for directions.

Of course, he couldn't take these maps with him; he could only secretly take pictures of them.

When no one was looking, he took photos of the three maps in a private reading room.

While taking photos, he kept his social media account open the entire time, constantly watching to see if anyone was getting close, acting like a spy.

There's nothing we can do about it, because he doesn't actually have a suitable reason to go to Africa right now, so he can't legitimately request copies of these documents.

As for developing photos, that's not difficult. He has a spare developing machine in his space, and he can develop photos himself.

(End of this chapter)