A heartfelt call for Mr. Cy Koski has captured widespread attention online. The message comes from Yin Yuzhen, a national model worker who has dedicated her life to combating desertification by planting trees in the Mu Us Sandy Land. She is searching for the American friend whose donation of $5,000 in 1999 has, through her decades of diligent cultivation, blossomed into a thriving forest of over 50,000 trees.
Time has passed, and the once-small saplings have grown tall and strong. Yin Yuzhen now wishes to find her old friend, Mr. Cy Koski, and extend a sincere invitation for him to return to the Mu Us Sandy Land to witness the lush, green woods his contribution helped create.
"I would rather die exhausted from planting trees than be bullied to death by the sand." In 1985, at the age of 19, Yin Yuzhen moved from her hometown in Jingbian County, Shaanxi Province, to Jingbeitang in Erlinchuan Village, Henan Township, Uxin Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, following her marriage. Uxin Banner lies in the heart of the Mu Us Sandy Land, an area once described in a local folk song: "The wind blows the yellow sand, making it hard to keep your eyes open; the crops cannot grow fully."
Faced with an endless expanse of desert, her wedding chamber merely a cellar half-buried in the sand, Yin Yuzhen felt she could not survive there. She contemplated ending her life and once ran away from home, but ultimately chose to return to the depths of the desert. "I walked to this sand dune, and my husband was on that one. He howled, crying that he didn't want to stay in this godforsaken place either. His cries softened my heart."
In the spring of 1986, the year after her marriage, Yin Yuzhen traded the family's most valuable possession—their only sheep—for 600 saplings. She and her husband planted them around their home. Though fewer than ten survived, Yin Yuzhen saw a glimmer of hope. She vowed, "I would rather die exhausted from planting trees than be bullied to death by the sand." From that moment, a protracted "battle against the sand" began.
Beyond barely scraping together enough to eat, the couple invested almost all their income into planting trees to combat the desert. To acquire more saplings, her husband, Bai Wanxiang, took on laboring jobs, asking for trees as payment instead of money. However, the relentless wind and sand made their tree-planting journey exceptionally arduous. One autumn, thousands of saplings they had planted were swallowed by a sandstorm overnight.
In the spring of 1989, Bai Wanxiang heard while working that a nearby village had 50,000 unwanted saplings. The couple negotiated with the villagers, offering their labor in exchange for the seedlings. They traversed multiple sand ridges daily, covering over 20 li (approximately 10 kilometers) of desert terrain, and managed to transport all 50,000 saplings back home to plant.
Year after year, Yin Yuzhen and her husband developed a method: using shrubs to block the wind and stabilize the sand, retain water and moisture, and then planting trees in successive defensive layers. The number of trees they successfully nurtured grew, and the green expanse steadily pushed back the desert.
$5,000 Donation Used to Purchase Tens of Thousands of High-Quality Saplings By 1999, Yin Yuzhen and her husband had already planted trees across nearly 30,000 mu (about 2,000 hectares). Their story of greening the desert became known to the outside world and began receiving widespread media coverage.
At that time, Cy Koski, who was teaching at a university in Henan Province, learned of Yin Yuzhen's endeavors through a television program. Deeply moved by the couple's spirit in creating a green miracle amidst the vast desert, he donated $5,000 to Yin Yuzhen specifically for tree planting.
For Yin Yuzhen, this was like receiving aid during a snowstorm. "I had never seen so much money before; it startled me at first. So I bought even more saplings and planted a large forest for him." She used the $5,000 to purchase tens of thousands of high-quality tree seedlings.
When Mr. Cy Koski made a special trip to visit Yin Yuzhen, he found her diligently planting the saplings. Witnessing the seedlings taking root in the sandy soil firsthand, Koski repeatedly exclaimed that this feat seemed "impossible." Yet, through decades of unwavering perseverance, Yin Yuzhen turned what others deemed impossible into reality.
Recently, she released a video sincerely inviting Cy Koski to return to the Mu Us Sandy Land to see the vibrant, green forest for himself. "Your $5,000 has grown into over 50,000 towering trees."
Starting from planting her first batch of saplings in 1986, Yin Yuzhen has been planting trees for over 30 years, transforming more than 60,000 mu (about 4,000 hectares) of barren sand into an oasis. The Mu Us Sandy Land, with a total area of approximately 38,000 square kilometers, has also been transformed from a place of swirling yellow sand and barrenness to one shaded by green trees and brimming with life.
We look forward to a heartwarming continuation of this China-U.S. friendship story that has spanned mountains, seas, and the passage of time.
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