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York Professor to Commemorate Canadian Hero Norman Bethune in Beijing on 60th Anniversary of his Death
Joining him is Evelyn Scott, an Ontario public school teacher and the only Canadian on the international committee organizing the commemorative symposium. A short documentary film about Bethune's home town of Gravenhurst will be shown at the event. It is produced by Gong Yafu, a director of the Chinese People's Education Press, who is currently working at York University on a teacher-training program for Chinese teachers of English.
Bethune's near canonization in China is still something of a curiosity to many Canadians. Copeland says that while Bethune did some important work in Canada in advancing the cause of socialized medicine and other social programs during the depression era of the 1930s, he was just one of many working in this area. "He sought to defend his convictions in the places where he believed the major battles for human dignity were being fought, first in Spain in 1936, and then in China in 1938, where he died doing what I think he would have considered the most important work of his life," said Copeland.
Mao's famous essay, "In Memory of Norman Bethune," written after he learned of Bethune's death in November 1939, is still required reading in every Chinese grade school. It tells a story of the doctor from Gravenhurst who administered to the sick and wounded soldiers of Mao's Eighth Route Army in their war against the Japanese, and who pioneered the use of mobile blood transfusion clinics at the battle front. Bethune is buried near the town of Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province; countless monuments exist to his memory across the vast Chinese territory.
Copeland has a long involvement with China through the Federation of Canada-China Friendship Associations (FCCFA). He is currently president of the FCCFA and co-director, with York Prof. Bernard Frolic, of a group exploring an exchange in northeast China between York and Dalian University of Technology to set up a program in Environmental Management. He has also been a visiting professor at Yantai University in Shandong province on China's northeast coast, which has had an exchange with York since 1988.
Evelyn Scott has helped facilitate numerous visits by Chinese delegations to Canada. She is an honorary member of the People's Friendship Studies Society, a China-based international organization promoting academic study, founded by its current chair, former Vice-Premier of China, Huang Hua. Besides organizing Canada's participation in the Bethune commemoration, Scott is working with Copeland to raise funds to build an elementary school in Tang County, northern Shanxi province, to honour the spirit and memory of Bethune. Tang County is in the Wutai mountains, a very poor region of China where Bethune set up his field hospitals. The school will be pre-built in Canada, using all Canadian materials and then shipped to the county. Canadian manufacturers are being approached to donate building materials. China's People's Education Press will donate books to the proposed school.
Copeland and Scott will leave for Beijing on November 7 and will be staying at the International Women's Centre Hotel on Janguomennai Dajie #19, telephone (011-86-10)-6528-6666, fax 6522-5261. A copy of Copeland's speech is available on request.
For further information, please contact:
Prof. Michael Copeland
Evelyn Scott
Susan Bigelow
In Beijing, Michael Copeland and Evelyn Scott can also be reached via:
Mr. Wang Dajun
Mr. Blair Burns
Capital Hotel, Beijing |
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