It was a barren, lifeless land for hundreds of years.
It would bury the farmland.
The house that was surrounded was sand.
It fueled every nuke and cranny.
However, the desert landscape is vanishing from the map, thanks to the afforestation efforts of many people.
One of them is a 100 -year -old man, who created a green miracle in the depths of Mouse Desert.
I hope I can live longer to see the land turn increasingly alive.
This is the very first pablo my grandpa planted.
September 25, 2021 At the southern edge of most desert, the middle reach of the Yellow River.
The 100 -year -old man we'll meet today lives in the depths of Mozou Desert, one of the His closest neighbor lives 8 kilometers away in the 200 -household village in Jingbian County, along a major tributary of the Yellow River.
Coming off the main road, after a 40 -minute drive from the county town, we drove for another 20 minutes on a bumpy single -lane dirt road into a vast expanse of rough, sandy terrain.
Xiaofei, my colleague and cameraman, said he would not have the guts to travel in this area by himself.
You'd completely lose your sense of direction.
The roadside view had changed from farmland to endless grassland and patchy shrubs.
Now and then we saw young poplars and Scots pines.
Then a house, a house in the middle of nowhere, came into view.
As we approached we saw an old man kneeling down by the house.
He was digging a hole with his bare hands.
Snatching a deserted sapling, he planted it in the hole and backfilled it.
He stood up slowly, and stormed firmly on the sand around the sapling.
It may grow into a tree you never know.
Our guide Guo Shui introduced us to Guo Cheng Wang, the centenarian who's devoted his life plunking trees on this land that's constantly threatened by desertification.
He exchanged greetings.
Wearing a white scrub hat, the short, brown -faced old man looked much younger than his age.
Though his tension prevented him from speaking clearly, his voice was loud and powerful.
Have you seen the populace?
I planted them all.
My grandpa has been doing one thing in his life, planting trees.
51 -year -old Guojian Jun joined his grandpa to plant trees when he was a teenager.
In Mongolian, Mozi means poor water.
Located at the southern border of Mozu Desert, one third of Jingbian county was covered by sand half a century ago.
We had sandstorms all year round, spring was the worst season.
Sometimes you could barely open the door in the morning with all the sand piled up in front of it.
They could also bury the farmland.
Inside the house, Guojan Junshou being a faded black and white photo of three people walking down a sand dune.
Each held a shovel in one hand and tree saplings in the other.
He said his grandpa started planting trees in the 1970s for a very simple reason.
We needed firewood to survive.
There was none. Guo Zhong -Wang was among the first of his fellow villagers to contract a piece of land in the desert in 1984.
Guo Xiu, our guide, said he was then a primary school student.
People from all walks of life were encouraged to plant trees in the 1980s, no matter if students, a worker or an official.
When I was a kid we were surrounded by encroaching deserts, the land was lifeless.
Now many parts of the land have turned grey.
Kids nowadays don't even know what a real desert looks like.
Walking around the once arid land that the family has been walking on for decades, we saw clusters of bushes, grass, and wild flowers as well as poplars and Scots pines.
You can still see barren, sandy areas, but mostly plants.
A large poplar tree caught my attention.
This is the very first popular my grandpa planted.
It came at the expense of our hog.
Looking up at the tree, Guojianjun tried to hug it.
It's impossible to wrap your arms around it!
We were so poor at the time that my grandpa decided to sell our hog to buy saplings, but we raised it to provide the family with an entire year's worth of meat and oil.
My grandma was mad at him but couldn't stop him.
So we ended up without eating meat for the entire year.
Guoching Wang sold the hog for 600 Yuan and bought 1 ,200 populous saplings in 1985.
Only one of them survived.
Grandma and their children complained a lot and asked him to quit planting trees.
But an overjoyed Guoching Wang thought differently.
My Grandpa exalted, wow this one survived, poplars can grow in the desert.
He was so encouraged that he continued to plant poplars in the following years with an ever increasing survival rate year by year.
Next to the large poplar tree is an old well that has run dry.
We dug the well in 1989.
We rented a chain dozer to deliver water pipes.
It took half a month to bring 20 pipes here.
The well enabled us to get water 19 meters underground.
The yield was not great, and each time we had to wait for hours for a bucket of water to be filled and drawn from the depth of the well.
But we found clean and quality water in the deep desert.
So, we stayed. One year later, the family built a house across the well.
We built the house to save commuting time.
During the tree planting seasons, our fellow villagers came to help plant trees, and we paid them back with firewood.
20 men slept in the two rooms on the east side.
The kitchen was in the middle, and women slept in the west wing.
Before the house was built, Grandpa had to walk one and a half hours, or more, from our village house into the desert.
Carrying saplings, food, and water on his shoulders, he departed at 6 .30 in the morning and didn't come home until 9 in the evening.
Chiang Nin -Ching, Guojian Jin's wife, married him two years after the house was built.
She was so scared, she cried upon arrival.
The house was surrounded with sand, it filled every nook and granny.
Growing vegetables was impossible due to water scarcity.
There was no electricity, the wind was so strong, that it always blew away the newly planted saplings, and we had to replant them again and again.
In case some survived, grandpa would urge us to take the best care possible of them.
I asked Guozhen Jing whether he ever thought of quitting.
Silent for a little while, the man in his 50s said he did think of leaving.
I thought I was so young and didn't want to plan trees for the rest of my life.
In fact, I left once but stopped halfway.
I thought if I were not there, my grandpa, who was already in his 70s, would struggle just trying to get drinking water.
So I came back. That was a life changing decision.
Hu Jien Jinh now pays his fare villagers to plant trees and is in a big tractor to carry saplings.
Trees have a lifespan.
My grandpa planted poplets.
They have a lifespan of 30 to 40 years.
They are growing very old now, and I'm replacing them with Scott's pines.
You can expect Scott's pines to live for up to 200 years.
In addition to planting trees, Guojianjun keeps two dozen cows and over 100 sheep, with the grass growing from the grove.
At the beginning of 2021, the family hosted a visitor from Iran.
Out of curiosity, he came to see what we were doing here.
He walked around and said, it's incredible to see trees growing in this place.
Bringing the desert under control, the villagers have started to raise cattle and grow vegetables.
The sandy soil is good for growing carrots and potatoes.
Some of the produce has been exported to Japan, South Korea and southeast Asian countries." Guo Shu, our guide, added that the average income per capita is now 19 ,000 yuan, or about US $2 ,800.
That's 40 percent higher than that of Shanxi province.
He said the ever -improving Living conditions have attracted an increasing number of people from neighbouring towns and provinces to make a living off the land.
After having lived in the old house for two decades, the Goer family moved to where they live now, which is a 15 minute walk from the old residence.
The new house covers an area of about half of a football pitch.
Its west courtyard is lush with grass and flowering garden cosmos.
The shed for cows and sheep is located to the east of the house, with a small vegetable garden next to it, growing tomatoes and pumpkins.
To the west is what Guo Zhenjun called an experimental field for cash crops.
rows of raspberries have been neatly planted there with some bearing fruit.
With tears in his eyes, the centenarian praised his grandson.
My grandson has done a better job than I have.
I hope I can live longer to see the land turn increasingly alive.
I will go all out to plant more trees with my teeth next spring." Guo -Jin -Jin said he's determined not to let his grandpa's efforts fail.
I'm in love with the land.
My grandpa taught me to stick to the thing you've decided to.
He has set a good example.
This place is still a dry sandy area.
If we stop taking care of it, it will turn back into desert." On our way back, Guo Shi said every year the locals from all walks of life would follow the tradition to plant trees on March 12th.
the National Tree Planting Day.
He proudly added that Jingbian County has stopped discharging silt into the Yellow River since 2015, the first in Shaanxi Province.
My grandpa passed away.
On the last day of March 2023, Gu On Wan died at the age of 102.
We dedicate this story to the memory of the old man who has inspired hope and courage to challenge an extreme environment and heal the land.
