一虎一席谈From 5,000 USD to 50,000 trees: an American teacher and a Chinese woman's efforts to green a desert_我的网站
一 | 8月18日，由中国科学技术馆与泰国国家科技馆共同建设的“倾听科学空间”（L.I.S.T.E.N Science Space）在泰国国家科技展上正式亮相，吸引了众多观众参观。 “倾听科学空间”是中国科技馆发起的“小而美”海外科普合作品牌，旨在与其他国家分享中国优质科普资源与经验，通过“资源共享、优势互补、联合研发”的合作模式，推动科学文化交流互鉴，提升公众科学素质。2025年11月，首个“倾听科学空间”在南非Sci-Bono科学中心落成开放，作为落实中非合作论坛北京峰会成果的重要举措，获得南非民众特别是青少年的热烈欢迎。此次泰国科学空间的开幕，是该品牌在海外落成的第二个项目，标志着“倾听科学空间”项目在东南亚地区的正式布局，项目品牌效应初步形成。  "I knew you would come early and sit here until four o'clock and then knock on my door," Sakolsky told Xinhua reporters with a grin. "That's why I was outside." It was, he said, just the way he remembered Chinese people doing things. His waiting outside was a small gesture of thoughtfulness, one that hinted at a friendship forged nearly three decades earlier between a veteran middle school world history teacher from Plum, a leafy suburb east of Pittsburgh, and a rural Chinese woman who devoted decades to holding back the shifting sands of the Mu Us Desert. In 1999, while working as an English teacher in China, Sakolsky was moved to tears by a TV report about Yin Yuzhen, a rural Chinese woman who was trying to hold back the shifting sands of the Mu Us Desert in northern China by planting trees. He spent two months raising 5,000 U.S. dollars to help Yin, then a stranger. Now 69, Sakolsky will return to China this month for his third visit, traveling from Beijing to Luoyang and finally to the Mu Us Desert. He looks forward to reuniting with Yin, giving her a big hug and planting another tree beside her, where shifting sands have given way to a forest roughly 50,000 trees strong. "It's a miracle," he told Xinhua recently. "There's no other word than it's a miracle." A JOURNEY HE NEVER PLANNED Sakolsky's modest two-story home in Plum is not where one might expect an international story to begin. He bought it 32 years ago and raised his family there with Barbara, his wife of 46 years. They have four children and eight grandchildren. High on one living room wall, "The Sakolskys," in large letters, crowns a display of framed family photos surrounding the words: "Family is where our story begins. Life takes us to unexpected places. Love brings us home." Asked to sum up his worldview in three words, Sakolsky answered without hesitation: family, respect, kindness -- the values that have anchored his life. "Family first," he said. "I'm a family man." That makes what he did in 1999 all the more striking. In his forties, in a doctor's waiting room, he spotted a tiny magazine advertisement recruiting Americans to teach English in China. Without hesitation, he applied, flew to New York for an interview, and was offered the position. His parents were stunned and came all the way from Florida to talk him out of it: He had four children and a stable teaching career. His oldest daughter was a high school senior, while his youngest son was entering elementary school. But his daughters supported him. "My dad said, 'You're crazy. How are you going to go away for a year? You have four children, a wife and a house to take care of.' Then he looked at my girls and said to them, 'Are you going to let your dad go to China for that long?'" "And my girls looked at their grandfather, and I'll never forget this. They said to him, "Whatever dad wants to do, we support him." With his family's blessing, Sakolsky left for Beijing, then traveled by train to Luoyang three days later. When he arrived at about 9 p.m. that night, the platform was almost empty and dimly lit. For a moment, he felt uneasy until he spotted two Chinese teachers holding up a piece of cardboard with his name written across it. Teaching at Luoyang Foreign Language School was only one part of Sakolsky's life in China. One of the earliest "lessons" he learned came from watching children kick an empty Coca-Cola bottle between two stones serving as goalposts. At first, he was puzzled by how they could play without a real soccer ball. "Then I realized it didn't matter to them," Sakolsky said. "They could play the game, laugh and have fun with a plastic bottle," he said. "So China taught me to appreciate the simple things in life. You don't have to have a lot of money, you don't have to have a big car and a fancy house, and you can still be happy. That was a big lesson that I learned right away." Beyond the classroom, Sakolsky often volunteered at nearby schools and villages and traveled with Chinese colleagues during school holidays, sharing modest guesthouses, simple meals and long train rides. Sakolsky told Xinhua such experiences helped him break the ice with his Chinese colleagues, who eventually treated him just like one of them. "That's what I wanted," he said. Sakolsky also told Xinhua that shortly after he arrived in China, his hosts gave him a Chinese name, Long Fu, or "Happy Dragon." "I like dragons," he said, laughing, "and I laugh a lot." A MIRACLE HE NEVER IMAGINED Every evening in Luoyang, Sakolsky watched a half-hour English news broadcast before heading downstairs to practice tai chi with elderly neighbors. Then, on an autumn evening in 1999, a brief TV report caught his eye. On the screen was Yin, planting trees by hand with her husband to push back the advancing sands of the Mu Us Desert, he remembered. The story stayed with him. "I was so touched in the heart, I started to cry," he recalled nearly 30 years later. "I honestly cannot tell you why. Something just happened to me. I just felt like I needed to help." Over the next two months, Sakolsky spent his evenings contacting more than a dozen organizations across the United States, determined to help the woman he knew only from that five-minute broadcast. After a series of setbacks, a Boston-based charity agreed to provide a 5,000-U.S. dollar grant with no strings attached. He then spent weeks helping coordinate the cross-border paperwork and communications. By the end of December, word finally came that the money had reached China and was on its way to Yin. "I expected nothing," he said. "You don't give something expecting something in return. I wanted to thank China and help her make China more beautiful. That was all. I didn't need a thank-you or anything else." He heard nothing more about the donation until the following May, when the school told him he needed to take a week off for a trip. When he asked his Chinese colleague, Bai Fan, and the New York-based coordinator of the exchange program where he was going, both gave the same reply: "I know, but I cannot tell you, you will cry." He was flown to Hohhot, the regional capital. At dinner, as Sakolsky sat facing the door, it swung open, and in walked a woman in a pink jacket. "That's the lady from television!" he recalled. "I jumped out of my seat, and I ran up to Ms. Yin and gave her a big hug." The next morning, before an audience of about 500 people, Sakolsky was asked to give an impromptu speech. He remembers little of the 20-minute address except its core message: Americans and Chinese "must focus on our similarities and not on our differences," and can work together to plant a forest in the desert. Afterward, they drove for four hours. "No roads, no timber, no houses," he recalled. "We were just driving over sand dunes in the desert." When the vehicle finally stopped, there was nothing but sand stretching to the horizon. Then Yin emerged from a hollow in the dunes, where she had been digging for water to irrigate her young trees. Yin showed him how to plant the trees, which he thought would grow only about knee-high to hold back the sand. "I never thought that it was going to be a 50,000-tree forest," he said. "Back then, I said this was impossible (turning this desert into a forest), but she did it, she and her helpers." That night, Yin and her husband welcomed him into their home. Nearly three decades later, he still remembers the homemade noodles Yin cooked for him. "Delicious," he recalled softly. Earlier this year, Yin launched an online search for the American teacher who had helped her plant the first trees. The story eventually reached Sakolsky, who was stunned to learn that the forest had grown to roughly 50,000 trees. "Fifty thousand trees!" he exclaimed. "I cannot believe it." Then came photos showing a building and a road where there had been nothing but sand in 1999. "When I go back, I will be amazed," he said. "It's a miracle. There's no other word for it." Sakolsky insisted that Yin was the real hero. "I'm not the hero of this story," he said. "Ms. Yin is the hero. I just helped." "Since she was a child, she always wanted to beautify China. It was a lifetime dream of hers, and she has accomplished her dream," he said. A REUNION HE NEVER EXPECTED For more than two decades, Sakolsky and Yin lost touch, but China never really left him. His home is filled with reminders of those years: a Year of the Dragon card, a calligraphy scroll, paintings of peonies and pandas, a wooden dragon made by his children, and even a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his first dinner in Luoyang, kept as reminders of Chinese hospitality, though he has never smoked. Downstairs, in the basement, stands a nearly six-foot replica of a Terracotta Army general, a gift he received after returning to teach in Luoyang in 2004. It stood in his classroom for 17 years before he brought it home upon retiring. Now, he hopes his youngest son, also an educator, will one day give it a place in his own office. Based on his experience in China, Sakolsky summed up his impression of the Chinese people in three words: respect, simplicity and patriotism. He called China's decades-long fight against desertification remarkable in terms of both scale and dedication. "China also, with what Ms. Yin did with the forest, taught me how much love the Chinese have for their country," he said. "She was making like no money and still planting the trees. That's what got to my heart." "The fact that Chinese people are willing to sacrifice and give back because they love their motherland is awesome," he added. In June, while traveling in Australia, Sakolsky was recognized by a woman from Singapore who had seen a video about his story. "She was like, 'Oh my god, there are millions of people who have watched this video!'" he recalled, still astonished. "I'm just a simple teacher," he said. "I live a simple life ... I have four fantastic children and eight fabulous grandchildren, and that's what I love. I never thought anything like this was ever going to happen." Sakolsky is set to travel to China for a trip late this week. Asked what he wants to do first when he sees Yin again, he didn't hesitate: "Give her a big hug." He also hopes they can plant trees side by side once more. For Sakolsky, the reunion holds great significance. "We're all humans. We all love our families, we all love life, we all love the Earth. We all want peace," he said. He suggested that everyone can work together to create a peaceful world. "It's not an easy thing, and not a quick thing. It will take time, but it can be done." "(If) the goal is strong enough, and you don't quit every time you face an obstacle, (if) you keep going, (then) you'll reach the goal. That's what Ms. Yin did."    。 中国与泰国是友好邻邦，两国关系源远流长。中泰两国在科技领域的合作不断深化，从航天探索到天文研究，从科普教育到人才培养，双边科技合作正朝着全方位、多层次方向稳步迈进。此次“倾听科学空间”的建成亮相，正是落实两国科技合作共识、深化中泰全面战略合作伙伴关系的重要举措。
二 | 该科学空间在泰国国家科技展期间率先与公众见面，整体规划面积约500平方米，融合科学展示、互动体验与文化交流于一体。空间设置了互动展教具体验区、科学教育活动区等功能区域，配备桌面互动展教具、小型互动展品、VR体验设备等展教资源，可灵活组织青少年开展互动体验活动，并支持科学课程、小组讨论、直播互动等多种教育形式。 值得一提的是，除中国科技馆提供的核心展教资源外，双方团队还共同研发了9件融合中泰文化元素的特色展品。这些展品将中国非遗技艺中的科学智慧与泰国传统文化特色相结合，生动呈现了两国文化交流与科技碰撞的独特魅力，成为本次合作的一大亮点。 中国科学技术馆作为项目主要资源提供方，将丰富的展教资源与科普经验融入空间建设。泰国国家科技馆则发挥其对本土科普需求的深刻理解和本地化优势，确保空间内容与泰国观众产生共鸣。
三 | 这种“资源共享、优势互补、联合研发”的合作模式，成为中泰科技教育合作的典范之作。 科技展结束后，“倾听科学空间”将永久落户泰国国家科技馆科学广场，持续面向泰国公众开放。
四 | 这不仅是一处科普基础设施的联合建设，更是两国共同推动科学教育创新发展的务实实践。其建成开放，既展现了中泰全面战略合作伙伴关系的蓬勃活力，也为推动构建中泰命运共同体注入了科技动能。 未来，双方将以该空间为平台，持续拓展合作领域，通过联合研发展教内容、共建数字资源库、开展人员交流等方式，为深化中泰友谊、促进民心相通贡献科技力量。（陈硕）版权申明：凡注有“”或电头为“”的稿件，均为独家版权所有，未经许可不得转载或镜像；授权转载必须注明来源为“”，并保留“”的电头。 。 Current article:http://5mnj.shuicengchongmingnouhuawang.bond/news/20260826_57844.html Published on:04:06:19 |
