Health care confidentiality Chinese-poster-style For the benefit of any young ESL teachers coming to China from Canada who did not learn about Norman Bethune during their school days: Bethune is very highly regarded by the Chinese. Upon learning that you are Canadian, a Chinese person, especially an older person, may mention Bái Qiúēn, so if you don't know anything about him, it would behoove you to learn. You don't want to have a blank look on your face when Bethune's name is brought up.
Dr. Norman Bethune (1890 - 1939) was a doctor and surgeon. Like many intelligent, compassionate and educated people of his generation, the massive death toll of the Great War and the hardships of the Great Depression led Bethune to distrust capitalism as a means of human progress. At that time, Fascism and Communism were contending ideologies that won many adherents among the educated classes in the West. (This was before the horrors of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia became apparent.)
Bethune visited the Soviet Union and became a member of the Communist Party. He served as a battlefield surgeon during the Spanish Civil War. Later he volunteered as a surgeon for the Chinese Communist forces, who were at that time fighting to expel the Japanese occupiers from their country. Bethune died in 1939 as a result of blood poisoning contracted while performing battlefield surgery.
I have read, and can well believe, that no matter how long a foreigner lives in China, they will never be regarded as anything but a foreigner. Dr. Bethune seems to come the closest to being an exception to that rule.
Dr. Norman Bethune (1890 - 1939) was a doctor and surgeon. Like many intelligent, compassionate and educated people of his generation, the massive death toll of the Great War and the hardships of the Great Depression led Bethune to distrust capitalism as a means of human progress. At that time, Fascism and Communism were contending ideologies that won many adherents among the educated classes in the West. (This was before the horrors of Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia became apparent.)
Bethune visited the Soviet Union and became a member of the Communist Party. He served as a battlefield surgeon during the Spanish Civil War. Later he volunteered as a surgeon for the Chinese Communist forces, who were at that time fighting to expel the Japanese occupiers from their country. Bethune died in 1939 as a result of blood poisoning contracted while performing battlefield surgery.
I have read, and can well believe, that no matter how long a foreigner lives in China, they will never be regarded as anything but a foreigner. Dr. Bethune seems to come the closest to being an exception to that rule.
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