Ma Haide

Mǎ Hǎidé ( Chinese马海德; born September 26, 1910 in Buffalo, New York as George Hatem ; died October 3, 1988 in Beijing ) was a Chinese physician of Lebanese - American descent.

biography

parents

George Shafik Hatem ( Arabic : جورج شفيق حاتم) came from a Lebanese-American family in New York . His father, Nahoum Salama Hatem, moved to the USA from Hammana (حمانا) in Lebanon in 1902 and worked in a textile factory in Lawrence (Massachusetts) . During a stay in Lebanon in 1909 he married Thamam Joseph from the village of Bahannes. Both came from Maronite families. After the marriage, the couple moved to Buffalo, New York, where Nahoum Hatem worked in a steel mill. Their first son George was born in Buffalo.

youth

In 1923, George Hatem's father sent him to Greenville, North Carolina and attended high school there . A few years later, the rest of the family followed and opened a haberdashery store .

George Hatem attended introductory medical courses at the University of North Carolina and then studied medicine at the American University of Beirut and the University of Geneva . In Geneva he met students from East Asia and heard a lot about China.

Shànghǎi

On August 3, 1933, Hatem embarked in Trieste with his fellow students Lazar Katz and Robert Levinson ; on August 5th they arrived in Shanghai .

Hatem opened a practice in Shanghai and took the Chinese name Mǎ Hǎidé (Wade-Giles transcription: Ma Hai-tê ). In Shanghai he met the journalist Agnes Smedley , the New Zealander Rewi Alley and the politician Song Qingling (widow of Sun Yat-sen ) know and subsequently Liu Ding, a liaison man of the Communist Party of China .

In 1936, George Hatem or Mǎ Hǎidé considered either going to Spain to fight on the side of the Republicans or joining the communist movement in northeast China. He gave up his practice and sneaked through the Guomindang Front to areas controlled by the CCP, where he worked as a doctor for the communist forces.

Red Army

In the summer of 1936, Mǎ Hǎidé and journalist Edgar Snow arrived at the CCP headquarters near Bao'an (now Zhidan ), the capital of the border region between Shaanxi , Gansu and Ningxia . At the request of Mǎ Hǎidé, Edgar Snow did not mention him by name in his sensational book “Red Star Over China”.

When the war with Japan came to a head in 1937, Mǎ ​​Hǎidé Song Qingling, Agnes Smedley, and other prominent figures suggested that medical personnel be recruited abroad for the communist forces resisting the Japanese occupation in northern China. He met Norman Bethune when he arrived in Yan'an in late March 1938 and helped establish health services for the troops and the population in the area. Mǎ Hǎidé also met the Dixie Mission from the USA when they arrived in China in July 1944.

Mǎ Hǎidé married the actress Zhōu Sūfēi 周 苏菲 and had a son (Zhōu Yòumǎ 周幼 马, born 1943) and a daughter (Liang Bi).

People's Republic

Mǎ Hǎidé worked for the communist troops until 1949. After the founding of the People's Republic, he worked in the health service of the People's Republic and was the first foreigner to receive citizenship of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s . During the post-war period he did his best to eradicate leprosy and fight venereal diseases .

During the Cultural Revolution , Mǎ Hǎidé was politically persecuted.

Mǎ Hǎidé died at the age of 78. He is buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.

Awards

In Hammana, his father's hometown, the main square was named after Mǎ Hǎidé.

In 1986 Mǎ Hǎidé received the Albert Lasker Public Service Award .

literature

• Edgar A. Porter: The People's Doctor: George Hatem and China's Revolution . University of Hawaii Press, 1997; ISBN 0-8248-1905-5 .
• Sidney Shapiro : Ma Haide: The Saga of American Doctor George Hatem in China . Cypress Press, 1993; ISBN 9787507201710 .