Walking a hero's path

With an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, Jiajin Mountain has precipitous topography, dangerous rocks and changeable weather. According to local people, even birds cannot fly over the mountain, but it became the first large snow mountain that the Red Army soldiers crossed.

Chung and James tried to imitate part of the Red Army's process for crossing the mountain, down to details like drinking a bowl of "pepper water" in the foothills in preparation for the later coldness they would meet.

"I learned that the Red Army soldiers tried their best to use their limited resources. For example, when hiking over the snowcapped mountain for a long time, people's eyes can hurt without goggles to mitigate the glare of the light hitting the snow. But the soldiers didn't have such equipment, so they would hang two small bunches of horsetail hair in front of their eyes, which acted in a similar way, so that they could protect their eyes," says Chung.

According to Wang, there are few photos or videos that illustrate revolutionary history, including that of the Long March and the deeds of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, so people's understanding of these events is very limited.

That is why they were keen to get firsthand experience. "When you stand in the same place, walk the same road, encounter similar difficulties in similar temperatures as they did, you can really know how courageous and tough our predecessors were. And you get a magical feeling of communicating with them through the decades," says Chung.