Ryan

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This story is immensely touching and is going massively viral in China. It's also a pretty good soft signal that China is taking warming ties with the U.S. sincerely.

This lady 👇 is called Yin Yuzhen (殷玉珍) and she lives in a place called Jǐngbèitáng (井背塘) in Inner Mongolia - deep in the heart of the Mu Us (毛乌素) Desert, a place whose name literally translates from Mongolian as "bad (lacking) water".

In 1985, aged 19, she and her husband were really desperate by the encroaching desert: sandstorms would seal their door shut overnight and literally threaten to bury them alive. She was crying every day and considered ending her life.

However, her defiant spirit prevailed and she decided to fight the desert, saying she'd "rather die planting trees than let the sand bully me to death" (宁可种树累死，也不让沙子欺负死)

In 1986, they traded the family's most valuable possession - a sheep - for 600 tree seedlings. Fewer than 10 survived, but they saw hope. Her husband Bái Wànxiáng (白万祥) took manual labor jobs and asked for tree seedlings instead of wages.

In 1999, Yin Yuzhen's story made it into national news on CCTV. An American named Ronald Sakolsky - originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - who was teaching English as a foreign instructor at Luoyang Foreign Language School (洛阳外国语学校) in Henan province, was deeply moved. He immediately started sending emails to multiple American organizations to raise $5,000 for her.

The $5,000 was sent through a Beijing-based foundation. In the video 👇, Yin Yuzhen recalls receiving it: "I had never seen that much money in my life - it scared me half to death." She spent every cent on higher-quality seedlings than she'd ever been able to afford.

Shortly after, Sakolsky traveled to the Mu Us desert in person. He found her out in the sand, planting. Seeing green where he'd expected only desert, he kept saying "impossible, impossible."

With Sakolsky's $5,000 alone, Yin Yuzhen planted 50,000 seedlings which have now become a forest. Over her entire life, since the 1980s, her life's work stands at over two million trees planted, transforming almost 50 km² (roughly 80% of Manhattan) of desert into green land.

Yin Yuzhen was awarded the 全国劳模 (National Model Worker), one of China's highest civilian honors.

Seeing her video titled 寻找赛考斯 ("Searching for Sakolsky") and the incredible impact it was having on Chinese social media, journalists from Inner Mongolia's Benteng Media (奔腾融媒) tracked Sakolsky down by going to the Luoyang No. 2 Foreign Language Academy and finding the Headmaster Bai Fan, who was Sakolsky's former colleague.

Bai Fan connected with Sakolsky by phone on the spot, shot on video by the journalists (my 2nd video 👇), inviting him back to China to see what his $5,000 became.

This was 2 days ago on May 17th so you can bet that a Sakolsky visit to China will be arranged soon and that this will be one of the biggest pieces of US-China public diplomacy this year.

Now this story coming out and being amplified right after Trump's visit is of course no coincidence, we shouldn't be naive: what better way to translate the warmth from the visit than letting a desert grandmother in a red headscarf tell the internet she's looking for her American friend?

That doesn't make the story any less real or any less touching. In fact this story is the perfect reminder that countries don't have friends, but people do. And when countries remember this, deserts turn green.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@CaliJay29 @thedealsguy_ It has Nintendo switch games

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@BrickCenter_ Before we start anything, can anybody from the left define “woman”.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@SonsofYissikar @CollinRugg Can you define woman🤡

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@EndWokeness Donate or money laundry ?

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@FoxNews @zerohedge They say America has freedom of speech 🥴

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@dudfira @lorxell Hmm. I thought he checks ID for the government grocery store. 🤡 Spider-Man gotta proof himself as a New Yorker.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@XJosephCox @PeterSweden7 We are all people on the same planet. Why do we have different culture and religion? How many wars in the history started with religious conflict? Massive import people with different moral value is gonna cause chaos and conflicts.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@WallStreetApes He can be professional protester like greta thunberg

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@YodaHulk420 @rapidreactionz @thirdmetax Especially the kid knows what he is doing.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@andayeKE @Inevitablewest In a perfect world, communism will work.

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@therobbieharvey Wondering how this ends. Since the rapist gets short jail time nowadays.🤡

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@Pricerrors Considering pre-Covid, those soda was like $3 a pack. The surging price helped me quit drinking soda😂 healthier life style

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@BatresIV @Pricerrors Works for me. Try again

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@Dexerto Meanwhile you don’t need ID to vote😂

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@remarks Time to raise minimum wage to $50. That will solve the problem

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@space_244 @LilJonAdams @Saffron_Sniper1 Mimicking China?🤡 look at your crime rate vs China. How many young girls got raped in UK and the criminals did not get what they deserved?

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@EndWokeness After seeing NYC knicks fans, those Mexican fans look way more peaceful 😂

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@DallasTexasTV Meanwhile look at our knicks fans 😂

[Ryan @ryanshogun]

@Sebxstixn3 @Pricerrors 😂