The Yunnan-Vietnam Railway was the first railway to enter Yunnan and for a long time was the only modern road linking Yunnan to the outside world. In a series of treaties following the Sino-French War in the late 19th century, France was granted the privilege of building a railway in Yunnan. With the completion of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, it quickly became the main access point to the outside world and thus revolutionised the perception of time and space and the physical experience of travelling in Yunnan. Today, the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway has been with the land for more than 110 years, influencing each other in a way that has shaped Yunnan’s history and become a part of the latter. Cheng Xinhao grew up living near this railway. In primary school, his father told him that the other end of this highland railway was a sea, and the imagery of the sea and the railway has been bound together ever since.

Starting on 1 December 2019, Cheng Xinhao set off from Kunming to walk along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway towards the ocean at the other end of the railway, walking 446 kilometres in 19 days to the border between China and Vietnam. Every kilometre he picked up a ballast stone to carry on his back and took a video. In doing so, he encounters the time, the objects and the earth connected to the railway.

滇越鐵路是進入雲南的第一條鐵路，在很長一段時間內也是雲南連通外界的唯一一條現代道路。在19世紀末中法戰爭後的一系列條約中，法國獲得了在雲南修建鐵路的特權。隨著滇越鐵路的建成，它迅速成為了外界進入雲南最主要的通路，也由此徹底改變了雲南行旅的時空感知與身體經驗。 如今，滇越鐵路已經和這片土地共存了110餘年，在相互影響中造就了雲南的歷史，也成為了後者的一部分。 程新皓從小生活於這條鐵路旁。 在小學時，他從父親的敘述中得知了這條高原鐵路的盡頭是一片大海，從此將大海與鐵路的意象捆綁在一起。

2019年12月1日開始，程新皓從昆明出發，沿著滇越鐵路向鐵路盡頭的海洋行走，在19 天內步行446 千米，直到中國與越南的邊境。 每公里撿拾一塊砟石背負在身上，並拍攝一段錄像，由此遭遇了與鐵路相連接的時間、諸物與大地。

Cheng Xinhao (b.1985 in Yunnan Province, China) currently lives and works in Kunming, China. He received his Ph.D in Chemistry from Peking University in 2013. Cheng’s works are usually based on long-term field studies, centering around his hometown in Yunnan Province. With videos, installations, photographs and words, he personally investigates the polyphonic relationships between logic, discussions, knowledge, and the part that nature, society, and history play within them. His long-term projects include Strange Terrains (2013-, about the ethnic group Mang in the borderlands of Vietnam and China), To the Ocean (2018-, about the Yunnan- Vietnam Railway), and Tales about the South of Clouds (2021-, about the oral literary tradition in Yunnan).