Ma Haide
Ma Haide | |
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Communist Party of China |
Ma Haide (
Family and early life
Shafick George Hatem was born into a
George Hatem's parents were of
Soon after being married, the Hatem family moved to Buffalo, New York, where Nahoum took a job at a steel mill. It was in Buffalo where their first child, George, was born on September 26, 1910.[1]
In 1923 Hatem's father sent him to live in
While in Geneva, "Shag", as he was then nicknamed, became acquainted with students from East Asia, and learned much about China. With financial help from the parents of one of his friends, he and several others set off to Shanghai to establish a medical practice to concentrate on venereal diseases, as well as basic health care for the needy.
Career
Shanghai
On August 3, 1933, Hatem with colleagues, Lazar Katz and Robert Levinson, boarded a ship in Trieste that took him to several ports in Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong. On September 5, the three young American doctors landed in Shanghai.[6]
Hatem set up the practice in
By 1936, disgusted by the corruption of Shanghai and alarmed by the world drift towards
Yan'an
In the summer of 1936, Ma travelled to the Communist headquarters at
As the war with Japan started in earnest in 1937, Ma Haide sent requests to Soong Ching-ling, Agnes Smedley, and other notables to organize recruitment of foreign medical personnel for the communists' troops fighting the Japanese armies in northern China. He was among those meeting Norman Bethune when Bethune arrived to Yan'an in late March 1938, and was instrumental in helping Bethune get started at his task of organizing medical services for the front and the region.[10]
He was present at Yan'an, when the Dixie Mission, an American civilian and military group, arrived in July 1944. Ma was a source of surprise and comfort for many of the Americans when they met the American born physician. Many accounts of the mission make reference to Haide. Known commonly to the group as "Doc Ma," Ma periodically assisted Major Melvin Casberg in studies of the state of medical treatment in the Communist territories.
Post-war life
Ma remained a doctor with the Communists until their victory in 1949, afterwards becoming a public health official. He was the first foreigner granted citizenship in the People's Republic of China. He is credited with helping to eliminate
In the 1950s, Ma was secretly granted Chinese citizenship, but he retained his American passport until the 1960s. Despite his reputation as the most loved American in China, he was denounced during the Cultural Revolution as a "bourgeois lackey."[12]
There is an extensive interview with him in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's groundbreaking 90 min documentary by Patrick Watson, The Seven Hundred Million (1964).
Honors and awards
During his lifetime, he was honored in his father's hometown of Hammana in Lebanon, where the main square of the city is named after him.
In 1986, Ma received the
Personal life
Ma's wife was Chou Sufei (aka Zhou Sufei 周苏菲), an actress. They had a son Chou Youma (aka Zhou Youma 周幼马) (b. 1943) and a daughter Liang Bi.[12][13][14]
On October 3, 1988, Ma died in Beijing at the age of 78. He is buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, China.[12][15]
References
- ^ a b c Porter 1997, pp. 1–2
- ISBN 0-8047-0618-2
- ^ Porter 1997, p. 37
- ^ Porter 1997
- ^ Kammerer, Roger (2006). Recollections of Pitt County.
- ^ Porter 1997, p. 34
- ^ Porter 1997, p. 34,41
- ^ "Liu Ting," Donald W. Klein, Anne B. Clark, Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921-1965, (Cambridge, MA, 1971) Vol. I, p. 628
- ^ Porter 1997, pp. 56–57
- ^ Porter, pp. 115-118
- ^ 1986 Albert Lasker Public Service Award
- ^ a b c Sullivan, Walter. Oct 6, 1988. Sullivan, Walter (October 6, 1988). "nytimes.com Dr. George Hatem Is Dead at 78; Leader in Public Health in China". The New York Times. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
- ^ Zhou/Chou 周, Youma 幼马 (September 28, 2010). "The happy life of Ma Haide's later years (马海德晚年的幸福生活)". China Soong Ching Ling Foundation. China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (中国宋庆龄基金会).
- ^ Daly, Eric. Nov 17, 2015. "An American Physician in China bjreview.com". Retrieved December 27, 2016.
- ^ "'Tomb of Dr. Ma Haidi in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery' University of Maine maine.com". Archived from the original on November 8, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
Sources
- Porter, Edgar A (1997), The People's Doctor: George Hatem and China's Revolution, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0-8248-1905-5, archived from the original on March 3, 2016, retrieved December 1, 2018. Partial texton Google Books.
- Snow, Edgar. The Other Side of the River: Red China Today. New York: Random House, 1962.
External links
- Journal of Public Health Policy review of books about Ma Haide, 2001
- Open Mind interview
- Ma Haide, the Saga of American Doctor George Hatem in China
- Behind Red Star over China (2006 account from China Daily)
- The short film Rx for the World's Most Populous Nation (1986) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
- Maine University. 2008. Photo of tomb of Ma Haide (George Hatem) at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, China. Photo taken by Marilyn Shea. Archived 2018-11-08 at the Wayback Machine