Japanese volunteers help China with desert control (1/4)

Mase Hiroki plants sapling in Engebei, Ordos, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Aug. 26, 2012. Mase Hiroki, a 42-year-old man from Nagoya of Japan, quit his job as a hair stylist in 2004. He then came to China and bacame a volunteer to plant trees in desert areas. Since he moved to Engebei in 2007, he and two other team members, Tanabe Mihoko, his fiancee, and Tanabe Hidenori, have received about 500 person-time Japanese volunteers every year and grown 15,000 saplings with them annually. Engebei lies in Kubuqi Desert, the 7th largest desert in China as well as the 9th in the world. Every year, volunteers from different places come there to make joint efforts to the desert control. (Xinhua/Xie Xiudong)