United States history teacher Ronald Sakolsky (third from right) poses with Yin Yuzhen (center), a national model worker in Maowusu, China’s fourth-largest sandy area, in the spring of 2000, when Sakolsky raised $5,000 to help Yin and her husband plant trees and fight desertification. [Photo/Xinhua]

A voice from afar spoke through the cellphone in the hands of 60-year-old Yin Yu­zhen in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region: "It's amazing! It's amazing to me! I can't believe we are talking."

The voice belonged to Ronald Sakolsky, 69, a retired high school teacher in the United States.

Yin asked: "When will you return to China to see the green forest that has grown from the $5,000 you contributed years ago?"

It had been decades since they last spoke, but like many such conversations between friends, it seemed perfectly natural to be picking up where they had left off. "I will be waiting for you in the desert," she added.

A video of their interaction, which was recently released online by a local media group, has touched the hearts of millions across China.

Yin, a resident of Wushen Banner in the city of Ordos, is a national model worker widely acclaimed as one of China's afforestation heroes. Starting in the mid-1980s, she spent four decades reversing desertification and greening a stretch of Maowusu, the fourth-largest sandy area in China, by planting trees.

Yin had long been searching for her "American friend" who raised money to support her afforestation work.

Earlier this month, Yin sought the help of local media to find him. In an online video post on May 16, she said, "Sakolsky, if you see this, I would like to invite you to come back to China, where your $5,000 has grown into a large forest."

Netizens, including Sakolsky's former students and colleagues, responded, which resulted in their brief phone reunion on May 18.

As part of a teacher exchange program, Sakolsky taught English at a school in Luoyang, Henan province, from 1999 to 2000. During that time, he saw a television program about Yin's sand control work and was moved by her unyielding spirit.

Hoping to fund her afforestation efforts, Sakolsky wrote to many institutions in the US. An institution in Boston, Massachusetts, agreed to donate $5,000 for Yin's work. The money was sent to her in cash through a Chinese organization.

In 2000, Sakolsky traveled to Maowusu to meet Yin in person. What he saw was inspiring. Yin was planting trees in the desert using just a shovel and traditional shoulder poles. She tied young saplings, which were as thin as fingers, with hemp rope and carried them in bundles to be planted on the uneven ground.

Between 1985 and 1999, Yin and her husband planted saplings across nearly 2,667 hectares.

"When Sakolsky came, he kept repeating the word 'impossible'," she recalled in the video post. "Well, I made 'impossible' possible. At that time, I had never seen so much money."

Yin spent most of the money on buying saplings, but kept $1 as a souvenir. When Sakolsky left China after completing his teaching assignment in Luoyang, the two lost touch.

Over the years, Yin stayed in Maowusu, planting trees each day. Her persistent work earned her recognition as a national model worker and national hero of desert prevention and control. In 2017, she shared her experience at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Maowusu covers about 42,200 square kilometers. Two-thirds of it is located in Ordos, and the rest extends to Shaanxi province and the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

With the Great Wall lying in the south, the sandy land has long resisted reclamation. Through the efforts made by Yin and others, more than 559,000 hectares are now blanketed in green, and the forest coverage rate is about 33 percent.

Speaking to China Daily on Sunday, Sakolsky was full of praise for Yin. "She is committed to her dream. She never gave up."

He told People's Daily: "The outreach effort of my former students and colleagues in China was impressive. It really is a miracle to get back in touch."

Mutual respect goes beyond borders. Yin told China News Service that Sakolsky helped her buy saplings "at the most difficult time", and that she has "never forgotten and will never forget" his kindness.

The real miracle is bigger than their reunion; it is seeing young saplings grow into dense forests.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday that the friendship between Yin and Sakolsky is a microcosm of the positive people-to-people exchanges between China and the US.

"We are confident that the two peoples will keep adding new chapters of friendship and injecting fresh vitality into bilateral ties," Mao said.

Yin speaks with Sakolsky by phone on May 18. [Photo/Xinhua]

(责任编辑：{typename type="name"/})

• ·207金117银111铜 中国队亚残运圆满收官
• ·日本一架“全球鹰”无人侦察机失联，已发现疑似残骸
• ·通航在即！平陆运河“智慧大脑”已就位
• ·照片被挂孙笑川吧并遭网暴后，我起诉了挂我的人
• ·安特·米利西奇出任中国女足主教练
• ·象棋比赛后一选手被质疑用“肛珠”作弊，中国象棋协会通报
• ·太行山下全国“铁人”开战 三项竞技在山西阳城火力全开
• ·英国大学排名前十名学校有哪些？
• ·乍得西部发生部族冲突 至少25人死亡
• ·美国博士留校任教攻略
• ·尼泊尔泥石流灾害已致1396人遇难
• ·会议搁置，金价快速回落
• ·大选前通胀表态对立，薪资数据提供新线索
• ·华中农业大学通报教师学术不端问题处理情况：撤销职务 解除聘用合同
• ·医疗康健留学生求职观察： 跨国企业的选择逻辑
• ·一箭十星 朱雀二号改进型遥七运载火箭发射成功