I) UNL LILLE Ls ihn il McEWEN REPORTS ON CHINA * * * vers (ity that reveres a great Canadian Two cities in China and their Kindly people’ will always re- Main vividly in my memory. Ohe is Shih Chua-Chuang in | Hopei province where the Bethune International. Peace Hospital stands, dedicated to the memory of a great Cana- tian doctor, Norman Bethune. The other city is Anshan in liaoing province, a great new Manchurian steel -centre, the Pittsburg” of North China. Although ‘hundreds of miles part these two Cities are bound together by Onds much Stronger than € strongest Steel, because the revolution- ay core of the Steel builders® = of Anshan are veterans of the 8th Route Army days. They are veterans of the Long March Tom Kiangsi in the south to fennan in the North; of a Reople’s army which starved, toze, crawled and fought its Way over swamp, grasslands, ‘Urging rivers and snow-cap- Ped mountains, to bring libera- On and a new life to an en- ‘laved people. As this army moved its tor- Tous way north, beset on all Sides by the Kuomingtang and aPanese armies, veteran army ‘Ommanders like Chu Teh foul cheer their men on with € encouraging words, “Re- €mber comrades, Doctor Be- ‘une is right behind you.” Small wonder that the name this Canadian doctor is ‘Poken with reverence from anton to the borders of Mon- S0lia by old and young alike. * * x thvben it became known that Rice Canadians were to visit hih Chua-Chuang, mayor ‘a Hsui-Ming of that city velled all the way to Peking “Sme 380 miles to meet us and jompany us. back to his med city the first to be lib- "ated in China’s struggle for "eedom from the Kuoming- ang and Japanese aggressors. fo hen our train arrived at UW in the morning, a large oun of city and party offi- als was on the platform to Steet us in the name of the Pople of Chih Chua-Chuang. ae in the day we met the “ople themselves, doctors, Wses, staff personnel, and endteds of citizens in a great ar nstration — to thank our q Y and the people of Cana- th for Doctor Norman Be- Une, phe Bethune International aoe Hospital, Memorial Hall Neg Park covers an area of ~“8rly 2,000 acres. Seven times the hospital had to change its location. The present buildings were completed in 1954. It has 800 beds and a total staff of.1,200 doctors, nurses, trainees and other staff personnel. Director of the Bethune Hospital is Chang Chih-Chi and vice-dir- ector Ko Wei Chuan, both frontline fighters in the great liberation struggle. The hospital has eight sec- tions including X-ray, blood bank, surgery, optical, dental, maternity, TB, and “tradition- _ al” Chinese medicine many of its departments under the dir- - ection of students taught by Dr. Norman Bethune, in the firing: line and in the Yennan caves. I gathered a lot of statistics on the work of this famed hos- pital and its Canadian founder, but statistics are cold things when measured against the kindly people who stood with us around the grave of Bethune, listening to the tri- bute of Leslie Morris, and weeping for the foreigner who came to them and proved his friendship by his devoted work to their army and people. Every Sunday not less than 6,000 of Chih Chua-Chung’s 518,000 people visit the graves of their countless heroes who sleep in Memorial Park, and the flowers on Bethune’s grave are always fresh. Coal miners and_ textile workers bring their families to this sacred spot on “rest” days and tell their children of a great Canadian who came to help them during the hard years, and died helping them. Little children pluck flowers from the well kept borders of flowers between graves and lay them on the little bit of earth that is Canada to them. When we left Chih Chua- Chuang and its great memorial centre of health and culture, hundreds came from the hos- pital and the city to bid us goodbye, with flowers and tears and the true internation- alism of the common people. * x * One month later in the steel city of Anshan in the North, I found a son. Strange how things happen. In this great new city of steel in the North of which I shall have more to say next week, we had met with the usual hospitable re- ception. Civic, trade union, and party officials told us all about the stirring history of their city under Japanese occupa- tion and Kuomingtang rule. Anshan was one of the key centres of the Japanese “co- prosperity” scheme in which Chinese industry, agriculture, education and culture were all subordinated to Japan’s im- perialist ambition. * Here Tom McEwen (left) is shown with A. A. MclI.eod and Leslie Morris of Toronto at the grave of Dr. Norman Bethune, famed Canadian surgeon who died in China while heading a medical mission to the Chinese Liberation Army. Like many other cities An- shan was won and lost from and to the enemy many times before final liberation. Only the people of Anshan know what their liberation cost in torture, suffering and death. We sat around the table after dinner. Yang Kwei-Chen who had been with us during our tour of the giant steel mill was quietly relating the days of the Long March, the ter- rible sufferings of the 8th Route Army men, the dire poverty of the people. Born in Kwangtung pro- vince, South China of three generations of textile work- ers, Yang Kwei-Chen had joined up with the 8th Route Army in the south. He didn’t know what it was all about at the age of 18 years, but some villagers had told him that the Red Army fought for the people. Every now and again he would cease talking, in tones scarcely above a whisper, turn away and wipe the tears from his eyes — and beg our for- giveness for his “weakness.” Severely wounded in both legs Yang Kwei-Chen had lit- erally crawled for ten days, trying to keep up with his army. As an 8th Route Army man he knew the peasants and the villagers would feed and care for him if they could, but the people had no food, And so he crawled, painfully but re- Jentlessly, to catch up with his beloved army and crawled right into the midst of an- other battle and more wounds. Then a miracle happened. While shells were screaming overhead a gaunt foreigner speaking a strange tongue ran out of nowhere, picked Yang Kwei-Chen up in his arms and carried him into an old dis- used Buddhist: Temple, the front-line “hospital” of Dr. Norman Bethune. There Dr. Bethune and Nurse Jean Ewen worked to save his life and patch up his shrapnel-torn body. During the operation a shell tore half the temple “hospital” away, but. the work went on as though nothing were amiss. A Canadian doctor had taken the Hippocrates oath to sustain life and screaming death out- side would not steer him from that path. Yang’ Kwei-Chen’s_ voice trailed away into silence, and only tears came. Words from any of us around that table would have seemed terribly empty. Getting up from his chair, stiffly from his old wounds, and wiping all traces of tears from. his .eyes, Yang Kwei- Chen came and laid his hand on my shoulder and spoke these words, “Comrade Mc- . Ewen, I would be very proud to be called your son. Dr. Be- thune and your. daughter saved my life. May I, please?” * x * It was getting dark when our train pulled out of Anshan. A large number had come to the station to see us off and bid us goodbye. (How very dear and how terribly short many of those friendships were.) As the train moved slowly out of Anshan station a little man separated himself from the group and ran stiffly along beside my coach. It was my son, Yang. Kwei-Chen, steel builder of Anshan. Back of him in crimson silhouette, the red glare of his blast furnaces lighted the dark October sky. Other red glares had lighted the skies of China, those of burning villages and towns, and people. Yang Kwei-Chen has seen them all from Canton to Yennan. Now he had lit one himself, for peace and social- ist construction — the Anshan blast furnaces. - HUB HUMOR. Finest English pure underwear for men... cluding the famous VIKING MELLOFLEECE shirts, draw- ers, and combinations Also English pure wool com- binations . . $6.95. ASK ABOUT FREE .CREDIT. “45 EAST HASTINGS. NOVEMBER 30, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 5