HOHHOT, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-six years had passed before Yin Yuzhen, a national-honored sand-control villager in China's Inner Mongolia, finally sat down to have a reunion feast with her American friend Ronald Sakolsky.
More than half a month before the reunion, she had already begun preparing a feast for Sakolsky, a retired teacher, making sure he could savor the homely, authentic flavors.
The night before their reunion, Yin still gathered around the table with her family, going over who would steam the cakes and how every dish should look and taste.
"Everything must be done properly. Each dish should look beautiful and taste delicious," she told them. "No chicken essence. Just the real flavor."
At noon on Monday, laughter filled Yin's home. Around the table sat Yin, her family and Sakolsky, sharing a long-awaited reunion meal after 26 years apart.
For each dish, Yin had chosen an auspicious meaning: boiled mutton, a symbol of desert generosity; braised fish for abundance year after year; stir-fried green beans for smooth sailing. One by one, she introduced them to her old friend.
The menu had been revised again and again prior to the reunion meal.
While waiting for her friend's visit, she slipped out to her vegetable garden whenever she had a spare moment, imagining stir-frying a plate of long beans for Sakolsky, or thinking how good steamed pumpkin would taste to her old friend.
When the desert roses had bloomed, Yin turned them into the filling of mooncakes. Her family made more than 5 kg of mooncakes to welcome Sakolsky as the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching.
"I put roses in the filling so he can taste the sweetness of the desert," she said. "Mooncakes mean reunion. I want him to try a traditional Chinese food and take some back to his family in the United States."
By the time the menu list reached more than a dozen, she still felt it was not enough. "I wanted to bring out the very best of the desert to welcome him," she said.
For Yin, the menu was more than a list of dishes. It carried the taste of home, the warmth of an old friendship, and the landscape's quiet transformation. The once-barren desert has become a place of green and abundance.
The story behind the feast began in 1999, when Sakolsky taught English at a school in central China's Henan Province under a teachers' exchange program between the two countries.
By then, Yin had spent more than a decade battling desertification that had severely threatened her livelihood, even half burying her house during sandstorms. "I'd rather wear myself out planting trees than let sand defeat me," she vowed.
After watching a television news report about Yin's tireless work planting trees in the Maowusu Sandy Land, the fourth-largest sandy area in China, Sakolsky was deeply moved and raised 5,000 U.S. dollars to help Yin and her husband with their afforestation efforts.
At the time, the donation was a staggering amount that was enough for Yin to build a house, cover her children's upbringing costs, and even completely change the trajectory of her family's life.
The saplings bought and planted with that donation have since grown into a forest of more than 50,000 towering trees.
When they first met in 2000, Yin's family had little to offer. All she could prepare was a bowl of plain noodles. In those years, the sandy land yielded so little that a bowl of noodles was among the finest meals a family could offer. The sand storms were so strong that one could find a layer of sand settle at the bottom of the bowl by the time the noodles were finished.
Learning that Sakolsky remembered the taste all these years, Yin ground fresh-harvested wheat into flour and made him another bowl of noodles for the reunion feast. This time, she displayed some special culinary skills.
"I stretched a single strand of dough to fill an entire bowl. This is our 'long-lasting noodle,'" Yin said. In Chinese tradition, extra-long noodles symbolize enduring friendship.
"The noodles are the best," said Sakolsky. "This is all from the desert. She helped Mother Earth, and Mother Earth said thank you. That's very simple, and that's something else China taught me."
Indeed, over more than four decades, Yin and her family transformed some 70,000 mu (around 4,667 hectares) of barren sand into green land, turning desert into fields, vegetable plots, and orchards.
Before the reunion meal, Yin led Sakolsky through her yard, where colorful corn, red-skinned potatoes and plump pumpkins were laid out like a small harvest exhibition.
"Look at all these vegetables and fruits," she said. "This land once could not even grow a blade of grass."
Yin's story is part of a much larger picture. Over the decades, China has set up special funds, offered preferential tax policies, and mobilized farmers and locals in afforestation campaigns.
Today, beyond dedicated local farmers like Yin, China's afforestation campaign also attracts large numbers of environment-conscious volunteers, especially young urban dwellers and international students.
Official figures show that China has contributed about one-quarter of the world's increase in green vegetation and rehabilitated 152 million mu of desertified land between 2021 and 2025.
"Our results in sand control are not only visible but can be tasted," Yin said. "If you protect the earth, the earth will reward you." ■
