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 leprosy and many venereal diseases in post-war China, for which he received the Lasker Medical Award in 1986. 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) and "Virtue From the Sea"(first name).
He died in China in 1988 and was buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.
During his lifetime, he was honored in his city Hammana in Lebanon, where the main square of the city is named after him.
There is an extensive interview with him in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's groundbreaking ninety minute documentary by Patrick Watson, The Seven Hundred Million (1964).
A film about him, showing an American doctor affirming Communist ideology, is broadcast frequently in the People's Republic of China. Consequently, his story is widely known among Mainland Chinese.
Read more about this topic: Ma Haide (George Hatem)
Famous quotes containing the words post, war and/or life:
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“But, after the war was over, just think what came to pass—
A letter, sir; and the two were safe back in the old Bluegrass.
The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle;
And Kentuck she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and well;
He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with whip or spur:
Ah! we’ve had many horses, but never a horse like her!”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)
“He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)