I am a Footprints teacher currently teaching senior high school in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China. I arrived here in November, 2007 and am enjoying my second stint as a Footprints teacher.
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit an impressive memorial in the west part of the city called the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Mausoleum. It is here that the famous Canadian surgeon and medical innovator Norman Bethune (affectionately know by all Chinese as Bai Qu En) is buried. He is probably best known for his introduction of the mobile blood bank to the battlefield and giving blood transfusions in the midst of heavy fighting. This man is a great hero in China and I think is one of the reasons why Canadians are so welcomed in this country. Often, when I am introduced to a Chinese person as a Canadian, they clasp my hand and proudly say the words Bai Qu En. I found it to be a very moving and humbling experience to visit his tomb and to read the words inscribed on it written by Mao Zedong-“we must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from Dr. Norman Bethune”. I would like to give you some background about this man so that you can better understand his great sacrifice for the Chinese people.
Norman Bethune was born in 1890 in Gravenhurst, Ontario. During the First World War he was a stretcher bearer. After the war he completed his internship at the hospital for sick children in London, England. Following a brief work period in the United States, he studied thoracic medicine at the Royal Victoria in Montreal. He became a member of the Communist Party of Canada and went to Spain to help fight Fascist aggression. He returned to Canada to go on speaking tour to raise money for the Spanish cause. However the Japanese were resuming their aggression against China and he decided that his expertise was needed there. So in January 1938 he sailed to Mainland China. The Japanese had chased the Chinese into the northwest part of the country. It was here that he met Mao Zedong.
Bethune practiced his profession as best he could under the most difficult of conditions. There were no mobile operating units and there was an urgent need to recruit medical trainees to meet the needs of the soldiers. Bethune and his crew of Chinese assistants were eventually able to establish and co-ordinate over twenty medical and nursing teaching hospitals. Despite this Bethune often operated for days without reasonable breaks. In one period he worked continually for sixty-nine hours on a total of one hundred patients. In October, 1939 he accidentally cut his left hand with the blade of his scalpel and died of blood poisoning (septicemia) on November 12, 1939 in Tangxian County. The Chinese people were greatly saddened by the news of his death.
I have been told that many Canadians make an annual pilgrimage to visit this site just as many Chinese do to his boyhood home in Gravenhurst. However, I don’t think that a lot of Canadians know of the heroic efforts of this legendary figure but I think they should. All Canadians must be thankful to this man for creating a lasting bond between Canada and China.
PS. On my first visit to his memorial I was a little disappointed that the information about his life surrounding the tomb was only in Chinese, although the text in the museum, dedicated to him on the same site is in both languages. The museum has a very impressive display of photographs and some original medical equipment used (and invented) by Dr. Bethune. I called a friend who works for the government and asked who I might contact to suggest that there should also be English at the tomb. A few days later I got a call from the local T.V. station. They wanted to interview me regarding this request.
The interview took place both on the grounds of my school and at the memorial park itself. It turned out to be a very special time at the memorial as this was the Pure Brightness Festival or Qingmingjie, which is a spring holiday to honor ancestors and those who have passed away. There were hundreds of people in the park paying their respects to Norman Bethune and laying flowers and wreaths at the foot of his tomb. I couldn’t think of a time in my life when I was as proud to be a Canadian. I then met the director of Martyrs’ Memorial Park who thanked me for my suggestion and learned that the city was currently translating the text. The interview was aired on three occasions.
In addition to this wonderful memorial there are two medical institutions in Shijiazhuang which I visited named in his honor, the Bethune International Peace Hospital and the Bethune Medical Military College. Many other memorials have been erected in his memory in the country over the years.
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