The Land of Tunnels

It began in 1972, amid the deadly blizzard on Haitan Island’s “Yama Slope.” Stonecutter Lin Kaishan gripped his chisel and vowed to “cut a road through the mountain.” Over seventy years, three generations transformed the island from a place where “you had to travel on foot” into one connected by high-speed rail, linked to the world, and opening a new chapter with tunnels reaching into space.

From the rugged evolution of chisels to intelligent tunnel-boring machines, to the devotion that endured across mountains and seas, this story also holds the secret behind China’s era-defining motto: “If you want to get rich, build roads first.” Every stretch of tunnel echoes with the lives of ordinary people resonating with the times, and every strike against the rock is a stone-carved legend from the “Hometown of Tunnels,” told to the world.