[LINK] "Comrade Norman Bethune still a force in China"

[rfmcdonald]

Bill Schiller's Toronto Star article addresses an interesting subject, that of Canadian doctor and hero Norman Bethune, huge in China but little known in Canada.

Canada's Dr. Norman Bethune was a force of nature in his late 40s when he landed in China, then at war with Japan in 1938.

Dr. Zhang Yesheng, 88, was just 17 then. But, more than 70 years later, his memory hasn't dimmed: he can still recall, with the precision of a many-pixelled camera, the exciting scene of Bethune's arrival in his village and military headquarters. Bethune brought 16 donkeys with him that day, he says, packed with food, medicine, surgical tools, a camp bed – virtually everything he needed.

[. . .]

Seventy years ago, on Nov. 12, 1939, he died of blood poisoning from an infection contracted after cutting himself during surgery.

But his memory here lives on.

Chinese schoolchildren trek regularly to a museum that honours his memory.

A coveted Bethune Medal is awarded annually to physicians making outstanding contributions to Chinese health.

And, in the past five decades, the Bethune Medical Division of Jilin University has graduated more than 30,000 professionals into the Chinese health-care system.

"As a travelling Canadian in China, you can see peoples' eyes sparkle – you can feel the effect – when you say you're Canadian, because of Norman Bethune," says Toronto physician Dr. Nelly Ng, who'll participate in a commemorative ceremony for Bethune at Beijing's Great Hall of the People Nov. 12.

Still revered by the Chinese, Bethune might be our biggest international star ever. And yet, by comparison, his reputation in Canada seems restrained.

Dr. Zhang, Bethune's former assistant in charge of medical supplies and later his student, thinks that restraint might be because of Bethune's devotion to Communism.

"Canadians sort of react when they hear that Dr. Bethune was a Communist," he says with a smile. "Of course, we don't refer to him as a proletarian revolutionary anymore," he adds. "We call him a reformist."

But above all, Zhang stresses, "he was a humanitarian."

There may have been a mention of him in one of my schools' social studies or history courses, but I think that all I've learned of him in Canada came from my own reading either online or in print.