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$5,000 grew into a forest: American donor returns to China to reunite with desert reclamation partner_我的网站
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At 2:48 am on early Sunday morning, after a flight of more than 10 hours, Ronald Sakolsky arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport. As he stepped into the arrivals hall, he greeted the waiting reporters with earnest Putonghua "Wo hui lai le," meaning "I'm back."
The thrill of his homecoming had washed over him most vividly during the final moments of his flight. "When I saw the lights in Beijing as we were landing is when I realized that I am back in my second home."
Sakolsky, an American retired teacher from Pennsylvania, is visiting China from Sunday to September 1 for a journey that will take him to Beijing, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Central China's Henan Province. It is a reunion nearly three decades in the making.
That reunion began with a single act of generosity. In 1999, when Sakolsky arrived in China as a participant in a bilateral teacher exchange program, he was moved by Yin Yuzhen and her husband's tireless efforts to curb desertification in the Mu Us Desert in Inner Mongolia. He raised $5,000 to fund their local tree-planting initiative. The young saplings bought with the donation have since matured into more than 50,000 full-grown trees, transforming the once desolate, sandy wasteland into a thriving green landscape.
After decades of lost contact, Yin, a national model worker renowned for her desert restoration achievements, launched an online search for her American benefactor in May, hoping to reconnect with the man who helped launch her lifelong desert reclamation mission.
What followed was a remarkable wave of online support: within less than 48 hours, a nationwide search had tracked Sakolsky down. That swift effort led to their long-awaited virtual reunion, a video call that brought them face to face for the first time in 27 years.
Asked what he is most looking forward to about this journey, Sakolsky told the Global Times that "I want to see Ms Yin, see the forests, see the students I have not seen for almost 30 years, my colleagues. I want to see the Chinese people."
The trip itself felt like a dream he never thought would come true, he added.
Now, the dream is about to come true. Later on Sunday, Sakolsky will fly to Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the site of the transformative environmental project that bound his fate with Yin's all those years ago.
During his China visit, Sakolsky will join Yin in a new tree-planting activity. He will also hold exchanges and discussions with teachers and students from the Luoyang No.2 Foreign Language School where he once taught, and participate in official China-US teacher exchange events, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
As he prepares to see the transformed landscape with his own eyes, Sakolsky shared with the Global Times about how much China itself has changed over the past two decades. From photographs, he said, he had already seen the barren desert he remembered turn into lush green forests; he had also heard that Luoyang has become far more vibrant and beautiful.
"Hopefully the message gets out to the world that Chinese and Americans can work together and make a peaceful world," he said.
。 据新华社消息，执行神舟十八号载人飞行任务的航天员乘组由叶光富、李聪、李广苏3名航天员组成，叶光富担任指令长。
B | 乘组包括1名第二批航天员和2名第三批航天员，3人均为“80后”。▲神舟十八号航天员乘组合影▲指令长 叶光富▲航天员 李聪▲航天员 李广苏 今天是第九个“中国航天日”，54年前的今天，中国第一颗人造地球卫星——“东方红一号”在酒泉卫星发射中心发射成功。上午11时，3名航天员在这块中国航天事业和“两弹一星”精神的重要发祥地与中外媒体记者集体见面。 神舟十八号明日出征 据新华社消息，经空间站应用与发展阶段飞行任务总指挥部研究决定，我国瞄准4月25日20时59分发射神舟十八号载人飞船。
C | 在轨驻留期间，神舟十八号航天员乘组将迎来天舟八号货运飞船和神舟十九号载人飞船的来访，计划于今年10月下旬返回东风着陆场。
D | 神舟十七号航天员乘组将于4月30日返回东风着陆场。
E | 我国第四批航天员选拔即将完成 据新华社快讯：我国第四批航天员选拔即将完成。他们入队后将和现役航天员一起，实施空间站后续任务，并实现中国人登陆月球。 中国载人航天工程新闻发言人、中国载人航天工程办公室副主任林西强表示，将抓紧研究推动国外航天员以及太空游客参与空间站飞行。 （中国小康网微信公众号综合新华社、中国载人航天微信公众号） 图源：中国载人航天微信公众号 编辑：田苑淯颖 审核：王芳。
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