当地时间9月13日，美国劳工部公布数据显示，今年8月美国消费者价格指数（CPI）同比上涨8.3%，随后在通胀忧虑蔓延的情况下，当日美股市场出现暴跌，三大股指创下两年多来最大单日跌幅。         Ronald Sakolsky is interviewed by Xinhua at his home in Plum, a suburb east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States, on June 16, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Rui)Ronald Sakolsky was already waiting on the front lawn as the car rounded the last bend, more than 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
"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."
    A printout of a Xinhua report about Yin Yuzhen's online search for "Sakolsky" is pictured at Ronald Sakolsky's home in Plum, a suburb east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States, on June 16, 2026. TO GO WITH "Feature: From 5,000 USD to 50,000 trees: an American teacher and a Chinese woman's efforts to green a desert" (Xinhua/Li Rui)
    Ronald Sakolsky poses beside a printout of a Xinhua report about Yin Yuzhen's online search for "Sakolsky" at his home in Plum, a suburb east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States, on June 16, 2026. TO GO WITH "Feature: From 5,000 USD to 50,000 trees: an American teacher and a Chinese woman's efforts to green a desert" (Xinhua/Li Rui)
    Ronald Sakolsky is interviewed by Xinhua at his home in Plum, a suburb east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the United States, on June 16, 2026. (Xinhua/Li Rui)
。多位分析人士在接受总台央视记者采访时指出，CPI同比增速居高不下，已连续6个月高于8%，特别是核心CPI涨幅加速，表明美国通胀压力短期内难以缓解，而美联储为控制物价被迫持续激进加息，将对美国股市乃至整体经济造成进一步冲击。△美国劳工部数据显示，尽管8月CPI同比增速（蓝线）连续两个月出现下滑，但仍连续6个月高于8%，表明通胀水平居高不下。住房和食品价格持续上行美国劳工部当日公布数据显示，今年8月美国消费者价格指数（CPI）环比上涨0.1%，高于市场预期的下降0.1%，同比上涨8.3%，高于市场预期的上涨8.1%。

B | 当月，剔除波动较大的食品和能源价格后，核心CPI环比上涨0.6%，同比上涨6.3%，均高于市场预期。尽管CPI同比增速连续两个月出现下滑，但仍维持在历史高位，并连续6个月高于8%，表明通胀水平居高不下，其中住房、食品和医疗保健价格上涨是主要推手。具体来看，占CPI权重三分之一的住房成本环比上涨0.7%，同比上涨6.2%；食品价格环比上涨0.8%，同比上涨11.4%；医疗保健成本环比上涨0.8%，同比上涨5.6%。分析认为，美国住房和食品价格持续上行，将对消费者心理产生影响，不仅表明通胀具有顽固性，也令美联储缺乏放缓加息的空间，未来将被迫持续激进加息应对通胀。密苏里大学助理教授费利佩·席尔瓦（Felipe Silva）在接受总台央视记者采访时表示：“关于今天刚刚公布的通胀数据，它们比预期的要高一些，市场原本预期比实际数据低0.2个百分点。然而，我想说的是，未来两个月的情况基本就像一个依赖函数，取决于通货膨胀和经济衰退的担忧如何实际演变，你会看到美联储实际上变得更加激进或不那么激进。

C | ”费利佩·席尔瓦指出：“截至目前，市场基本已经更新了关于下次加息的预期，我认为这已经明确了，市场预期下次将会加息75个基点，这是到目前为止最有可能出现的情况。

D | ”△彭博社报道称，通胀超预期或将令美联储更激进地收紧货币政策。

E | 专家详解股市为何暴跌目前市场普遍预期，美联储将不惜以经济增长放缓为代价，通过激进加息抑制需求，从而达到控制物价的目的。美联储主席鲍威尔此前在全球央行年会上表示，美联储加息至限制性水平后可能会保持一段时间，强调历史经验表明不应过早放松货币政策。他同时承认，降低通胀可能需要持续一段时间内低于趋势的经济增长，劳动力市场状况很可能会出现一些疲软，这会给美国家庭和企业带来痛苦。鲍威尔等官员的强硬表态，被一些市场人士解读为“只要不看到通胀数据明显好转，美联储就会坚持激进加息的货币政策”，而13日的CPI数据发布后，忧虑情绪迅速弥漫，美国股市当日出现暴跌。截至当日收盘，道琼斯工业平均指数下跌1276.37点，跌幅达3.94%，至31104.97点；标准普尔500指数下跌177.72点，跌幅达4.32%，至3932.69点；纳斯达克综合指数下跌632.84点，跌幅达5.16%，至11633.57点。三大股指均创下2020年6月11日以来最大单日跌幅。本次下跌令道琼斯指数在2022年累计下跌14%，标普500指数下跌17%，纳斯达克综合指数下跌26%。海投全球创始人兼CEO王金龙在接受总台央视记者采访时分析称：“今天美国股市全部暴跌，基本上是由CPI数据超出市场预期导致的。

F | 市场最近一周以来对CPI和美联储加息幅度的预期相对比较乐观，股市也一路反弹，而今天直接跌破到月初的水平。8月的CPI数据同比上涨8.3%并不是很离谱，相对7月的8.5%还有小幅下降，但是核心CPI与去年同期对比大幅上涨，而且相对7月的涨幅还在加速。市场对美国能够在今年内有效控制住CPI失去了信心。核心CPI的加速上涨，体现出通胀更加具有‘粘性’。

G | 虽然汽油和出行等价格已经下降，但房屋和食品价格还在上升，同时随着工资水平的提升，服务的价格也在持续上涨。”王金龙指出：“市场本周初基本上预计美联储在9月加息75个基点，甚至小概率会只加息50个基点。但在8月CPI数据发布之后，整体转向，市场已经预期有1/3的可能会加息100个基点。利率快速上涨会加剧企业和个人的资金成本，进一步压缩利润空间，导致美国经济基本失去了‘软着陆’的希望，所以市场反应剧烈，‘去风险化’的集体意识再次抬头。市场整体抛售资产，持有现金，不仅是股市，包括美国国债、黄金和石油等资产全线下跌，而美元指数在高位上继续攀升。”费利佩·席尔瓦也进一步指出：“如果利率上升，你的资金成本就会随着时间的推移上升，你的消费决定也会受到影响，因此消费者信心就会下滑，这是你能想到的最直接的影响。

H | 加息也会对股票价格产生影响，当你加息时，股票价格会有负面反应。当然，企业也会更新它们的投资和消费决定，由于企业预计消费者信心放缓，所以它们会迟疑，自然的后果是，它们将减少投资，它们将减少岗位，而这对经济有类似的整体影响。简而言之，这就是货币政策的传导方式。”与此同时，《华尔街日报》分析称，尽管美国目前的就业数据尚可，但如果有人认为美联储遏制通胀的举措不会导致利率上升到足以妨碍就业的程度，那将是错误的。

I | 而包括美国前财长萨默斯在内的一些经济学家甚至预计，降低通胀的代价，将是美国失业率超过6%。（央视记者 顾乡 刘旭）