Globalized Memories: Creating a Historical Space for Medical Pioneers in Modern China
Isaac C.K. Tan, Columbia University
Abstract
A Malayan Chinese, Dr. Robert Kho-Seng Lim (1897 â 1969) served under the Republican banner while Canadian-born Dr. Henry Norman Bethune (1890 â 1939), better known as Bai Qiuâen, was among the Communist ranks since the Yanâan years. Upon Bethuneâs premature death in 1939, he became a household name among the Chinese after Mao delivered his famous eulogy. As for Lim, he faded into obscurity after his departure from Taiwan in the initial years after the end of the Chinese Civil War. How then should we treat the stories of these individuals who transcended national boundaries and did not fit neatly in the modern national narratives of China and Taiwan? I argue that the âchronopoliticsâ of memory as shaped by the geopolitical situation of the Cold War created the conditions for the remembering, forgetting, distortion, and suppression of the memories of these transnational individuals. By examining the lives of Bethune and Lim, I emphasize the importance of micro-narratives of individuals in introducing a human dimension to global history. This chapter thus evinces the underlying discursive tensions surrounding representations of individuals in collective memory as well as the (mis)representation of individuals who do not fit neatly in both state-centric and nation-centric historical narratives of modern China.
Keywords: Bethune, Henry Norman (Bai Qiuâen), Cold War, collective memory, Lim, Robert Kho-Seng (Lin Kesheng), micro-history, nation-state
The ideal of a congruency of ânationâ and âstateâ defines modern nationalism and features prominently in contemporary historical representations.1 However, the formation of any modern nation-state is hardly in isolation. Mid-twentieth century China was at a crossroad where nationalist sentiments and transnational forces met. Transnational interactions contest the neatly-defined boundaries of both the nation and the state, even at the historical moment when the concept of the modern nation-state was in ferment. This chapter focuses on two medical specialists who came from different backgrounds but arrived at a war-torn country, leaving legacies that shaped the articulation of modern national identities in China and Taiwan. Dr. Robert Kho-Seng Lim (1897 â 1969), a Malayan Chinese, and Dr. Henry Norman Bethune (1890 â 1939), a Canadian better known as Bai Qiuâen, came from abroad to serve behind Chinese lines in the international fight against fascism during the Second World War (WWII). Lim served under the Republican banner while Bethune was among the Communist ranks since the Yanâan years. By examining the lives of Lim and Bethune, this chapter alternates between micro- and macro- approaches, bridges this divide by situating personal biographies in global history, and emphasizes the importance of micro-narratives of individuals in introducing a human dimension to global history.
At the end of WWII, the life stories of both Bethune and Lim served as propaganda fodder, used by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), to stir up anti-Japanese sentiments in the postwar period. The global experiences of Bethune and Limâthe former took part in the Spanish Civil War and was a proud communist; the latter received his medical education in the United Kingdom and returned to serve as the medical head of the Republican governmentâwere not a common trait of heroes in both the CCP and KMT narratives. State-centric narratives of the CCP portray Bethune as the exemplary international communist who laid down his life to resist fascism, while nation-centric narratives depict Lim as the model patriotic member of the Chinese diaspora who returned to his ancestral homeland in times of crisis. But to the KMT, though Lim was remembered as the father of modern medicine who orchestrated the modern transformation of the health service in Taiwan, his political aloofness relegated him to historical obscurity in post-war narratives. Not to mention that Bethune, being a member of KMTâs archenemy, was conspicuously absent as well.
This chapter argues for the creation of a discursive space to accommodate individual narratives in the broader context of global history. I examine how their unique life experiences in different parts of the world shaped their global outlook and fostered a strong sense of comradery with the community to which each of them was closely related. By considering carefully the biographical narratives in reconstructing the contextâor âthe social surfaceâ as coined by Pierre Bourdieuâin which the individual is dealing at each moment, it serves to highlight the role of personalities in carving out their special places in history, both at the national and global levels.2 The individual anecdotes thus critique conventional grand narratives that either overemphasize the role of the CCP and the KMT or venerate the supposedly inherent strengths of the Chinese population in overcoming long-time oppression to gain liberation from foreign forces as well as other internal feudalistic elements in an extraordinary period of turmoil and destruction.
In their study of the shared memories of the Holocaust within the Jewish diaspora after WWII, Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider argue that in the age of globalization, the construction of collective memory no longer stays within the confines of the nation-state but rather becomes the site of how transnational elements are transformingâboth disempowering and empoweringâthe imagination of the nation-state.3 Likewise, this edited volume challenges the dominant nation-state representations of modern Chinese history. Just as Egas Moniz Bandeiraâs chapter suggests how external events such as the 1789 French Revolution informed Chinese political debates and created discourses that were integrated into the Chinese collective memory, a key theme of this chapter is how collective memory challenges the discursive limitations imposed by national boundaries. Beyond the exchange of ideas across national borders, I highlight the mobility of individuals that also form an integral part of the Chinese collective memory. Rather than view the apparent differences in historical memory of people residing in China and Taiwan as a clash of aspirations along nationalistic or ideological lines, I underline the limitations of remembering the deeds of global individuals using the nation-state paradigm. This chapter also evinces the underlying discursive tensions surrounding representations of individuals in collective memory as well as the (mis)representation of individuals who do not fit neatly in either state-centric or nation-centric historical narratives of modern China. Following Levyâs critique on Pierre Noraâs idea that the nation-state serves as the sole source of collective memory,4 this chapter argues that collective memory needs to be diversified to accommodate personalized memories that lie beyond the demarcations set by national borders. The focus on these transnational individuals suggests that global factors do not imply an end of the imagination of the nation. Rather, they serve as a possible trigger for nationalistic rhetoric and the transformation of national narratives.5 This transnational approach not only introduces new perspectives to the notion of collective memory but also renders the relatively stable national boundaries demarcating memories and historical narratives more porous and flexible.
Joining the affluence of recent literature in memory studies that challenge the inade...
