View source for Ma Haide

{{Short description|Lebanese-American doctor who practiced in China and supported the Communists}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2022}}
{{family name hatnote|[[Ma (surname)|Ma]]|lang=Chinese}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Ma Haide
| native_name        = {{zh|t=馬海德}}
| image              = Ma Haide (cropped).jpg
| caption            = Ma in 1944
| birth_name         = Shafick George Hatem
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1910|09|26}}
| birth_place        = [[Buffalo, New York]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1988|10|03|1910|09|26}}
| death_place        = [[Beijing]], China
| resting_place      = [[Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery]], [[Beijing]], China
| other_names        =
| occupation         = Doctor
| party              = [[Chinese Communist Party]]
}}
'''Ma Haide''' ({{zh|p=Mǎ Hǎidé|s=马海德|t=馬海德}}; September 26, 1910 – October 3, 1988), born '''Shafick George Hatem''' ({{langx|ar|جورج شفيق حاتم}}), was an American doctor who practiced medicine in China.
== Family and early life ==
Shafick George Hatem was born into a [[Lebanese American|Lebanese-American]] family in upstate New York. His father Nahoum Salaama Hatem moved to the United States from the village of [[Hammana]] in the [[Matn District|Metn]] mountains of [[Lebanon]] in 1902, to take a job at a textile mill in [[Lawrence, Massachusetts]]. In 1909, on a trip to Lebanon, Nahoum married Thamam Joseph, a woman two years younger from the village of Bahannes.<ref name=porter1>{{harvnb|Porter|1997|pp=1–2}}</ref>
George Hatem's parents were of [[Maronite]] background.<ref name=porter1/> Some older sources claim that the family was of Syrian Jewish extraction,<ref>[https://archive.org/details/enemiesfriendsun0000vans/page/77 <!-- quote="george hatem" jewish. --> Lyman P. Van Slyke. ''Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History''. Stanford University Press, 1967, p.77.] {{ISBN|0-8047-0618-2}}</ref> but according to modern biographers, that was a misconception, although quite common even during George Hatem's life.<ref name=porter37>{{harvnb|Porter|1997|p=37}}</ref>
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.<ref name=porter1/>
In 1923 Hatem's father sent him to live in [[Greenville, North Carolina]], and the rest of the family joined him a few years later and opened a dry goods store.<ref name=porter-general>{{harvnb|Porter|1997}}</ref>   He graduated as valedictorian of the 1927 class of Greenville High School<ref>{{cite book |last=Kammerer |first=Roger |authorlink=Roger Kammerer |year=2006 |title=Recollections of Pitt County}}</ref> Hatem focused on pre-med classes at the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina]], where he was a member of [[The Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies]]. He then studied medicine at the [[American University in Beirut]] and the [[University of Geneva]].
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.{{cn|date=July 2024}}
== 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Porter|1997|p=34}}</ref>
Hatem set up the practice in [[Shanghai]], and changed his name to Ma Hai-te (Ma Haide). As he came to know Shanghai and its inequalities, he also came to know three people who shaped the ideas he used to interpret what he saw: the well known journalist, [[Agnes Smedley]], the New Zealand activist [[Rewi Alley]], and the presiding figure among left-wing sympathizers, [[Soong Ching-ling]], the widow of [[Sun Yat-sen]]. Rewi Alley was to be his friend and mentor for the next five decades, Mme. Soong was to provide key introductions, and Smedley, who heard of Hatem by reading one of his pamphlets on public health, introduced him to Liu Ding.<ref>{{harvnb|Porter|1997|p=34,41}}</ref> Liu, a liaison for the [[Chinese Communist Party]] (CCP), was described as a "young Red engineer" who awakened Hatem's heart.<ref>"Liu Ting," Donald W. Klein, Anne B. Clark, ''Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921-1965'', (Cambridge, MA,  1971) Vol. I, p. 628</ref>
By 1936, disgusted by the corruption of Shanghai and alarmed by the world drift towards [[fascism]], he decided that he would either go to Spain to support the [[Spanish Civil War|Republican government]] or join the communist movement in [[Communist-controlled China (1927–49)|Northeast China]]. He closed his practice and, with the help of the earlier established CCP contacts, was smuggled across Kuomintang lines to provide medical service to [[Mao Zedong]]'s troops.<ref>{{harvnb|Porter|1997|pp=56–57}}</ref>
=== Yan'an ===
In the summer of 1936, Ma travelled to the CCP headquarters at [[Zhidan County|Bao'an]] (present-day Zhidan), temporary capital of the CCP-controlled [[Shaan-Gan-Ning|Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region]].  He was accompanied by the pioneering American journalist [[Edgar Snow]].  At Hatem's request, he was not explicitly mentioned in the first edition of Snow's famous book, ''[[Red Star Over China]]''.  He is there anonymously as a Western-trained doctor who had examined Mao and determined he was not dying of some mysterious disease, which was the rumor at the time.{{cn|date=July 2024}}
As the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|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.<ref>Porter, pp. 115-118</ref>
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 CCP-controlled territories.{{cn|date=July 2024}}
== Post-war life ==
Ma remained a doctor with the CCP 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 [[leprosy]] and many venereal diseases in post-war China, for which he received the [[Lasker Award]] for public service in 1986.<ref>[https://laskerfoundation.org/winners/control-of-sexually-transmitted-diseases-and-leprosy-in-china/ 1986 Albert Lasker Public Service Award]</ref> He was one of the few persons who were not born in China to hold a position of trust and authority in the People's Republic of China. His Chinese name can be loosely translated to mean "Horse" (last name, commonly used by [[Muslims in China|Chinese Muslims]]) and "Virtue From the Sea" (first name).{{cn|date=July 2024}}
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."<ref name="nytimes_death"/>
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).{{cn|date=July 2024}}
== 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.{{cn|date=July 2024}}
In 1986, Ma received the [[Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award|Albert Lasker Public Service Award]] for his contributions to the control and eradication of venereal diseases and leprosy in China.{{cn|date=July 2024}}
== Personal life ==
[[File:Ma Haide and wife Chou Sufei.jpg|thumb|Ma Haide and Chou Sufei in 1944]]
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.<ref name="nytimes_death"/><ref>{{cite web|last1=Zhou/Chou 周|first1=Youma 幼马|title=The happy life of Ma Haide's later years (马海德晚年的幸福生活)|url=http://www.sclf.org/ztjj/2010mhd/news/201010/t20101021_18698.htm|website=China Soong Ching Ling Foundation|publisher=China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (中国宋庆龄基金会)|date=2010-09-28}}</ref><ref>Daly, Eric.&nbsp;Nov 17, 2015. {{cite web |url=http://www.bjreview.com/World/201509/t20150916_800038489.html | title= ''An American Physician in China'' bjreview.com |accessdate= Dec 27, 2016}}</ref>
On October 3, 1988, Ma died in [[Beijing]] at the age of 78. He is buried at the [[Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery]] in [[Beijing]], China.<ref name="nytimes_death">Sullivan, Walter. Oct 6, 1988. {{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/06/obituaries/dr-george-hatem-is-dead-at-78-leader-in-public-health-in-china.html| title=nytimes.com ''Dr. George Hatem Is Dead at 78; Leader in Public Health in China'' | website=[[The New York Times]] | date=October 6, 1988 |accessdate= Dec 17, 2016| last1=Sullivan | first1=Walter }}</ref><ref name="maine_univ_tomb">{{cite web |url=http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/HistoricBeijing/Babaoshan/pages/049b_Babaoshan.html |title='Tomb of Dr. Ma Haidi in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery' University of Maine maine.com |accessdate=Dec 17, 2016 |archive-date=November 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108105022/http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/HistoricBeijing/Babaoshan/pages/049b_Babaoshan.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Sources==
* {{citation|url=http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?db_name=uhpress&page=shop/flypage&product_id=424&category_id=b3e6237d1b1b3b8594488ed1c40d0dfb&PHPSESSID=21d8e4b22bad39550e9f01bab40a3137|title=The People's Doctor: George Hatem and China's Revolution |first=Edgar A|last=Porter|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|year=1997|isbn=0-8248-1905-5|access-date=2018-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230707/http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/cart/shopcore/?db_name=uhpress&page=shop%2Fflypage&product_id=424&category_id=b3e6237d1b1b3b8594488ed1c40d0dfb&PHPSESSID=21d8e4b22bad39550e9f01bab40a3137|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=iTdNTR4ZefwC Partial text] on Google Books.
* [[Edgar Snow|Snow, Edgar]]. ''The Other Side of the River: Red China Today''. New York: Random House, 1962.
== External links ==
{{commonscat}}
{{Portal|China|Biography|United States|Medicine}}
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4020/is_200101/ai_n8943674 Journal of Public Health Policy review of books about Ma Haide, 2001]
* [https://archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=open_mind&collectionid=openmind_ep622 Open Mind interview]
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4020/is_200101/ai_n8943674 Ma Haide, the Saga of American Doctor George Hatem in China]
* [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-10/22/content_713979.htm Behind ''Red Star over China''] (2006 account from ''[[China Daily]]'')
* {{Internet Archive short film|id=openmind_ep622|name=Rx for the World's Most Populous Nation (1986)}}
* [http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/HistoricBeijing/Babaoshan/pages/049b_Babaoshan.html Maine University. 2008. Photo of tomb of Ma Haide (George Hatem) at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, China. Photo taken by Marilyn Shea.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108105022/http://hua.umf.maine.edu/China/HistoricBeijing/Babaoshan/pages/049b_Babaoshan.html |date=2018-11-08 }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ma, Haide}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1988 deaths]]
[[Category:Eighth Route Army surgeons]]
[[Category:Chinese military doctors]]
[[Category:Chinese public health doctors]]
[[Category:American people of Lebanese descent]]
[[Category:American emigrants to China]]
[[Category:Chinese people of Lebanese descent]]
[[Category:People of the Chinese Civil War]]
[[Category:People of the Second Sino-Japanese War]]
[[Category:Physicians from Buffalo, New York]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the People's Republic of China]]
[[Category:People from Greenville, North Carolina]]
[[Category:20th-century Chinese physicians]]
[[Category:Burials at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery]]