A 69-year-old American retiree stepped off a plane in Ordos on Sunday and embraced a friend he had not seen in more than 20 years.

Ronald Sakolsky's reunion with Yin Yuzhen brought back a cross-border friendship that began in 1999, when his donation helped support Yin’s efforts to fight desertification.

At the time, Sakolsky was teaching English in central China's Henan Province under a China-US teacher exchange program. After watching a news report about Yin's afforestation efforts, he was deeply moved and donated $5,000 to support the Yin couple.

Months later, he traveled to the desert to meet Yin in person. Yin kept one dollar as a keepsake and used the rest to buy 50,000 saplings.

Today, the saplings bought with his donation have grown into a woodland, while the Maowusu (Mu Us) Sandy Land has become a global example of ecological restoration. Sakolsky will once again plant trees with Yin, a national model worker who has spent the past 40 years transforming the once-barren desert into a green landscape.

For many Chinese readers, the reunion also carries a familiar cultural resonance. It echoes the Chinese saying, "A drop of kindness should be repaid with a spring of generosity." Yin's decades-long search for Sakolsky is a vivid example of this deeply rooted belief in remembering kindness and repaying it.

The two lost contact after that visit, until a public campaign on Chinese social media tracked Sakolsky down in the United States earlier this year. Their reunion has since captured widespread attention.

"The important thing is many people have seen this story and now they can also help to make China beautiful. I learned this afternoon that the desert, the Mu Us Desert, is the biggest desertification in the world," said Sakolsky.

Invited by the China Education Association for International Exchange, Sakolsky will stay in China from August 23 to September 1. His itinerary includes teacher exchange events, a visit to his former school in Henan, a visit to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s press briefing hall, and trips to historical and cultural sites.