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American teacher takes jar of sand as symbol of shared ground in forest he helped grow in China_我的网站

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Ronald Sakolsky fills a jar with sand from the Mu Us Desert in Inner Mongolia, planning to bring it back to the US, on August 24, 2026. Photo: Lin Xiaoyi
On Monday afternoon, Ronald Sakolsky, an American teacher, set foot once again on the soil of the Mu Us Desert, in the Uxin Banner of Ordos, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He first came here in 2000. Back then, the land was little more than drifting sand. Today, it is green with trees – a transformation driven by decades of local effort.
He stood within Sakolsky Forest, a woodland formally named to honor his early donation toward local ecological restoration. There, he carried out a plan he had held long before this trip: filling a jar with sand from the desert to bring home to the US.
More than two decades ago, sand was the one thing this place had in abundance. In 1999, when Sakolsky arrived in China as a participant in a bilateral teacher exchange program, he was moved by the tireless efforts of Chinese desert fighter Yin Yuzhen and her husband to curb desertification in the Mu Us Desert. He raised $5,000 – equivalent in 1999 to three years of income for Yin’s entire family – to fund their local tree-planting initiative.
The young saplings bought with that donation have since matured into more than 50,000 full-grown trees, transforming the once desolate, sandy wasteland into a thriving green landscape.
When Sakolsky met Yin at the airport on Sunday, 26 years after his first visit to Inner Mongolia, he joked that he could not take a tree from the Mu Us Desert, but he could slip some sand into his shoes and carry a piece of the land back with him. Now, he had found exactly the sand he wanted – not just any sand, but from a place where persistence had turned desert into life, and where his own name had become part of that story.
“Promise is a promise,” he said. “Ms. Yin made a promise, and she fulfilled it.”
For Sakolsky, the sand is not just dirt. It is a metaphor, a bridge, a shared ground. He plans to tell his grandchildren what it means. “It’s not just a piece of sand in the jar,” he said. “It’s a jar of love.”
He used the jar of sand to symbolize that America and China share a relationship rooted in the same soil. He shook the jar, holding its two ends as if they were the two countries, and said that it shows we’re all on the same planet.
There is an old American joke, he noted, that if you dig a hole deep enough, you will eventually reach China. “We’re all on the same planet,” he said.
Earlier that day, while visiting Yin’s home, he spoke about the need for Americans and Chinese to see each other as family. “All Americans should understand that Chinese people and Americans can be family,” he said. “We can transcend differences if we focus on our common ground. We all love our countries, and we all value loyalty and respect – these are the shared virtues we hold dear.”
As for the sand he collected, Sakolsky said he would treat it as a treasure, alongside all his other precious keepsakes from China. He expects to display it in his living room – a daily reminder of the forest that carries his name and the people who made it grow.
。杭城昨天还是蓝天白云阳光灿烂，今天（20日）上午，杭州部分地区的雨水已经抢先上线。

昨天上午，西湖上空蓝天白云，风光如画。记者陈中秋摄杭州市气象台2026年8月20日11时31分发布主城区雷电黄色预警信号：受对流云团影响，预计今天中午到前半夜上城区、拱墅区、西湖区、滨江区的部分街道将出现雷电，局地将出现短时大到暴雨和雷雨大风，请注意防范雷电和降雨的不利影响，尽量避免户外活动。

截至13时48分，杭州已有11个气象灾害报警与预警信号生效中。

前几天短暂的晴好天气已告一段落，因为东风带系统的影响，杭州的天气格局再次发生变化，降水将重新成为“主角”。

20日11时雷达回波图据杭州市气象台预报，预计杭州20日—24日多阵雨或雷雨天气，其中今明两天（20日—21日）中午到夜里局部有短时暴雨，雷雨时局地有6～8级雷雨大风等对流性天气。今天，雨水主要集中在下午到前半夜；需重点关注的区域主要是富阳龙门山、萧山南部、桐庐东部等地。全省来看，新的天气格局昨夜就已开启，沿海地区率先上演了阵雨雷雨的桥段，局部地区更是有大到暴雨倾盆而下。今日一早更是上演了“变脸”大戏，前一秒还是白云飘飘，后一秒就乌云压顶，蓝天白云、乌云、阵雨随机出现，而被雨水“宠幸”到的地方，势头相当猛烈。

今天6时—9时，苍南、龙港出现暴雨大暴雨，乡镇面雨量前三为苍南县南宋镇155.2毫米、苍南县矾山镇129.4毫米、苍南县赤溪镇121.5毫米；单站雨量最大为苍南县矾山华岭头187毫米；小时雨强最大为苍南县矾山高丰88.3毫米。苍南曾一度拉响了暴雨红色预警信号。预计今日中午到夜里，沿海和浙南地区仍将是大到暴雨的“主战场”，局部甚至大暴雨出没。雷雨所到之处，还可能有短时暴雨和7-9级的雷暴大风。雨天出行请留意交通安全。

有了东风助力，雨水加持，副热带高压断裂，短暂休整，今日气温收起了往日的“嚣张”，变得格外讨喜：预计沿海地区29-31℃，其它地区31-33℃，一扫闷蒸体感。除了眼前的雨水，今年第18号台风“沙德尔”也值得关注。

B | 目前，今年第18号台风“沙德尔”（热带风暴级）已于昨天（19日）上午在西北太平洋洋面上生成，今天8时中心位于距离关岛阿加尼亚东南方向约820公里的洋面上，预计“沙德尔”将以每小时15~20公里的速度向偏北方向移动，强度逐渐增强，趋向琉球群岛以东洋面。从目前的预报来看，未来5天“沙德尔”对我省海域暂无影响，预计26日前后将靠近或进入东海。不过，台风后期移动路径仍存在一定的不确定性，后续还需密切关注其动态以及最新预报。