US teacher reunites with Chinese desert greening pioneer 26 years after $5,000 donation

American teacher Ronald Sakolsky reunited with Chinese desert greening campaigner Yin Yuzhen in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, more than two decades after a donation connected their lives across the Pacific.

Sakolsky traveled for more than 30 hours to reach Ordos after first arriving in Beijing. During the emotional reunion, he said he wanted to be regarded as a “laonei,” or insider, rather than a “laowai,” or foreigner, adding: “China changed me. It made me a better person.”

Their story began in 1999, when Sakolsky was teaching in Luoyang, Henan Province, through a China-US teacher exchange program. He saw a television report about Yin and her husband planting trees in the Mu Us sandy land and was inspired by their work.

In 2000, Sakolsky donated $5,000 through a foundation to support Yin’s efforts to combat desertification. According to Yin, the money helped purchase and plant saplings that eventually grew into more than 50,000 trees.

The story resurfaced in May after Yin, a national model worker, posted a video asking the public to help locate the American donor. Sakolsky was eventually found in the United States and, after learning what had become of the trees, decided to return to China.

During their reunion, Sakolsky praised Yin as the true hero of the story and recalled the transformation of the once-sandy landscape. Yin also prepared traditional Chinese buns and fresh produce grown in the desert to welcome him.

Their reunion was praised by China’s Foreign Ministry as an example of people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.