Published on: 2026-08-26
Source: People’s Republic of China — Translation
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
Hohhot, August 26 /Xinhua/ — Twenty-six years have passed since Yin Yuizhen, a resident of a village in China’s Inner Mongolia (Northern China) awarded a national honor for combating desertification, finally sat down at a festive table together with her American friend Ronald Sakolski.
To prepare for this event, she began over half a month before the meeting to prepare a treat for R. Sakolski, a former teacher, so that he could enjoy the authentic flavors of homemade cuisine.
The night before the meeting, Yin Yuzhen was still sitting at the table with her family, discussing who would prepare the steamed buns and how each dish should look and feel.
“Everything must be done properly. Every dish must look beautiful and taste good,” she told them. “Only authentic flavor.”
On Monday at noon, Yin Yuizhen’s house was filled with laughter. Around the table gathered Yin Yuizhen, her family, and R. Sakolski, sharing a long-awaited meal after 26 years of separation.
For each dish, Yin Yuizhen chose a symbolic meaning: boiled lamb – a symbol of the desert’s generosity; stewed fish – a symbol of abundance year after year; fried green beans – a symbol of a smooth path. One by one, she presented them to her longtime friend.
The menu was revised and refined over and over again before the festive lunch.
While waiting for her friend to arrive, whenever she had a free moment, she would go out to her garden, imagining how she would fry a plate of long beans for R. Sakolski, or thinking about how much her old friend would like steamed pumpkin.
When the desert roses bloomed, Yin Yuqzhen used them as filling for mooncakes. Her family baked over 5 kg of mooncakes to welcome R. Sakolski on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
“I put roses in the filling so he could taste the sweetness of the desert,” she said. “Moon cakes symbolize reunion. I want him to try the traditional Chinese treat and bring some to his family in the United States.”
When the menu featured more than a dozen dishes, she still felt it was not enough. “I wanted to showcase the very best the desert could offer to welcome him,” she said.
For Yin Yuzhen, the menu is not just a list of dishes. It carried the taste of a home hearth, the warmth of long-standing friendship, and a quiet transformation of the landscape. The desert, which was once barren, had turned into a place of greenery and abundance.
The story behind this feast began in 1999, when R. Sakolski was teaching English at a school in Henan province /Central China/ as part of a teacher exchange program between China and the USA.
By that time, Yin Yuzhen had been fighting desertification for over ten years, which seriously threatened her life: during sandstorms, the sand would even half-bury her house. “I’d rather exhaust myself planting trees than let the sand defeat me,” she vowed.
Upon seeing a television news report about Yin Yuzhen’s tireless work planting trees on the sandy lands of Maosu /”Mu-Us”/, the fourth largest sandy desert in China, R. Sakolski was deeply moved and raised 5,000 US dollars to help Yin Yuzhen and her husband in their reforestation efforts.
At that time, for Yin Yuzhen, this donation was an astonishing amount, enough to build a house, cover the expenses of raising children, and provide her family with a completely different life.
The seedlings, purchased and planted with these funds, have since grown into a forest of more than 50,000 tall trees.
When they first met in 2000, Yin Yuizhen’s family had little to offer. All she could prepare was a bowl of simple noodles. In those years, the sandy land yielded such a meager harvest that a bowl of noodles was considered one of the most exquisite dishes this family could offer. The sandstorms were so severe that by the time the noodles were eaten, a layer of sand could be found at the bottom of the bowl.
Learning that Sakolski had remembered that taste all these years, Yin Yuzhen ground freshly harvested wheat into flour and prepared him another bowl of noodles for the reunion feast. This time, she demonstrated special culinary skills.
“I stretched one strip of dough so that it filled the entire bowl. “This is our ‘long-lasting noodle,'” said Yin Yuzhen. According to Chinese tradition, very long noodles symbolize a long-lasting friendship.
“Noodles are the best,” said R. Sakolski. “It’s all a gift of the desert. It helped Mother Earth, and Mother Earth thanked it. It’s very simple, and this is another thing China taught me.”
Indeed, over more than four decades, Yin Yuzhen and her family have transformed about 70,000 mu /approximately 4,667 hectares/ of barren sand into green lands, turning the desert into fields, gardens, and orchards.
Before the festive lunch, Yin Yuizhen took Sakolski around her yard, where multicolored corn, red-skinned potatoes, and plump pumpkins were displayed as if in a small harvest exhibition.
“Look at all these vegetables and fruits,” she said. “Once, not even a blade of grass could grow on this land.”
The story of Yin Yuqzhen is just part of a larger picture. In recent decades, China has created special funds, provided preferential tax conditions, and mobilized peasants and local residents in reforestation campaigns.
Today, in addition to devoted local peasants like Yin Yuuzhen, China’s reforestation campaign also attracts a large number of environmentally conscious volunteers, especially young urban residents and foreign students.
Official data shows that China accounts for about a quarter of the world’s increase in green vegetation; the country restored 152 million mu of desertified lands from 2021 to 2025.
“Our results in the fight against desertification are not only visible but also felt in taste,” said Yin Yuzhen. “If you take care of the land, the land will reward you.”
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