00:00And when I left China last week, I left a piece of my heart there.
00:05It's my second family.
00:07Retired U.S. teacher Ronald Sokolsky returned earlier this month from a 10-day trip to China,
00:13but memories are still fresh.
00:15During the journey, Sokolsky reunited with Yin Yuzhen,
00:18a Chinese farmer and a pioneer in combating desertification.
00:22I cried so much in China that I probably could fill up a swimming pool.
00:27But it were tears of happiness and joy.
00:31There was no pain at all.
00:34In 1999, when Sokolsky taught English at a school in China's Henan province,
00:39he supported Yin with her efforts to turn the sands of Inner Mongolia green.
00:43I told Ms. Yin in 1999 that her goal was impossible.
00:48I thought the trees were only going to grow about three feet, about this tall.
00:53Yin Yuzhen taught me that the impossible is possible.
00:57With $5,000 donated by Sokolsky,
01:00Yin and her family cultivated a forest of more than 50,000 trees in the Mauwusu Sandy area.
01:06The hero is Yin Yuzhen.
01:09I did an act of kindness.
01:12No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
01:16And then on this trip, Yin and I planted more trees.
01:21Wow.
01:22And that's the whole thing.
01:24If everybody would just plant one tree,
01:29imagine what kind of world, how beautiful the world would be.
01:32I'm actually in the process of getting two trees that I want to put in my front yard,
01:39two flags, so when I plant the trees, I will put the American flag next to one,
01:46and the Chinese flag next to show the bridge between the two countries.
01:51Wow.
01:56During his trip to China, Sokolsky also visited Henan Province in Beijing,
02:01where he reunited with some of his former students.
02:04For Sokolsky, the reunions were also a reminder of how people-to-people exchanges
02:08can have a lasting impact.
02:10Love, family, and pride.
02:19Love, because of the love that being part of the family, being Lao-Neh, not Lao-Wei.
02:26Family, because I've been accepted.
02:29And pride, both American and Chinese are very proud of their country.
02:34Now they need to share that pride together.
02:37We can get over any obstacle if we share the goal.
02:41The whole important thing is building that bridge between the United States,
02:47because we are the two leading countries.
02:50If we can build a bridge, imagine what the rest of the world can do.
