Parks Canada wants to start a Mandarin-language program in celebration of Communist China hero Dr. Norman Bethune, says Blacklock’s Reporter, adding said Bethune’s Ontario birthplace will become a more of a shrine to the surgeon..It is currently Canada’s least-visited national park..“We have not seen that Parks Canada plan but from a tourism perspective it has huge potential,” said Mayor Paul Kelly of Gravenhurst, Ont..“Nobody is saying we don’t want people to come to Gravenhurst. Of course, everybody is concerned about what is going on with China, but if they are uncomfortable with the Bethune Memorial I haven’t heard them express it..“I have not heard anyone disparaging the Bethune Memorial. They see it as an opportunity to increase tourism.”.Bethune’s Gravenhurst birthplace in 1976 was designated a national historic site as a diplomatic gesture by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Bethune lived his first two years at the home before his family moved to Collingwood, Ont..Bethune, a Communist Party member, volunteered with the People’s Liberation Army and died in China in 1939 at the age of 49..He was adopted as a national hero by the People’s Republic in 1964 with the introduction of his story as mandatory reading in public schools..In 1975, a A state-approved Chinese biography praised Bethune as a glorious comrade.. BethuneBethune’s Ontario birthplace. Courtesy Wikipedia .“During his work with the Chinese people’s revolutionary forces he was greatly impressed by the correct revolutionary line and policies of the China Communist Party and comrade Mao Zedong,” said the official biography..“I now know why Mao Zedong impresses everyone who meets him the way he does,” Chinese propagandists quoted Bethune..“The man is a giant!”.Prior to the pandemic, visitors numbered 17,895 annually, half of them in October “when the Muskoka fall colours draw an influx of urban and new Canadians to the region,” said Parks Canada’s Bethune Memorial House Management Plan.. Norman-BethuneWanping Fortress .Managers proposed by 2027 to have “service to the public in Mandarin” to “meet the needs of the high percentage of visitors for whom this is their first language.”.Parks Canada said the site “holds immense spiritual and personal meaning to visitors of Chinese descent from Canada and abroad..“Dr. Norman Bethune, a great Canadian hero, is celebrated as the man who planted the seeds of a public health care system, created Canada’s global reputation as a nation with a social conscience, and invited generations around the world to think of the needs of others before their own,” wrote staff..The Management Plan said the site will be transformed into “a different kind of gathering place” to “move visitors, volunteers and partners to act as proud ambassadors of Bethune’s values, achievements and humanitarian ideals.”.Managers should “capitalize on the credibility accrued by the Bethune legacy to introduce Parks Canada to a broader audience, in particular of Chinese descent,” it said..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter.com/nobby7694
