SHIJIAZHUANG

Sometimes national historic sites can disappoint.

I'll give you an example.

When precocious little Brendan was only about five or six years old, we took him along to visit the Bell Homestead in Brantford, Ontario, where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We took the tour, looked at all the exhibits, read the plaques, and were getting ready to go when Brendan piped up to the tour guide and wisecracked (something to the effect of), "Well, this was an interesting tour but I need to make a call. Where's the phone?"

The tour guide replied there was no working phone in the house.

All our mouths dropped open.

"What? No phone working in the Bell Homestead where the telephone was invented?!" exclaimed Brendan.

"Well, there is a phone booth in the parking lot outside," offered the guide, lamely.

That's how it was for me in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province, at the Revolutionary Martyrs' Mausoleum.

The mausoleum is located in a large shady park not far from downtown, though it took us a while to get there. When we got off the train, we had to check my suitcase at "Left Luggage", where they did a perfunctory security check, find a washroom in the train station (not very clean), and then get directions to the mausoleum. There was a youth hostel across from the train station where an English-speaking clerk told us which bus to take. Then, we had to find the right bus stop. Once again, a local young man named Bright (I kid you not) took pity on us and led us personally a few blocks to the appropriate spot. We gave him a "Canada" baseball cap, made in China, and rode the bus to the mausoleum.

The park is filled with the remains of some of the more famous persons who lost their lives in the course of the Chinese revolution including soldiers, poets, and doctors. There are large busts of some of these martyrs. There are also some very large socialist realist pieces. And there are two whole sections reserved for doctors who died in the struggle. One is dedicated to Dr. Norman Bethune, the other to a Dr. Kotnis who was part of a solidarity team of doctors from India, who also lost his life here.

A tour guide at the museum on the site gave us a tour in English. There is a large statue in the park to Dr. Bethune behind which is his tomb. Flanking the statue and tomb are two walls bearing photos of key moments in the doctor's life: his birthplace in Gravenhurst, Ontario; his gradution from U of T; the medical instruments he invented for thoraic surgery; scenes from the Spanish Civil War; images of him in China; wreath-laying ceremonies of delegations from around the world, including the late External Affairs Minister, Mitchell Sharp, of Canada. (According to the guide, Lawrence Cannon was here only a month ago.)

Inside the museum building, some of the photos are repeated but in better quality and bigger size. There is also a piece of equipment from the world's first mobile hospital, designed by Bethune: an original collapsing operating table made from (Canadian?) plywood, that fit on a mule's back, and which also had compartments to store medications and supplies. There are big murals of Dr. Bethune meeting a young Chairman Mao and operating on wounded Chinese soldiers in his field hospital, as well as a recreation of the cottage in which he died from toxicosis after cutting his finger during a prolonged surgery. There were no drugs to treat the infection. In addition, there are photos of the medical school he established, which is still in operation and named after him and a hospital, which is two kilometres down the street.

Finally, on one wall, there is the complete text in big red Chinese characters of the short essay written by Chairman Mao entitled, "In memory of Dr. Norman Bethune", which the tour guide points out is required reading for every Chinese school child.

"It's in the textbook for learning to read Chinese," she says.

The guide takes us slowly through each and every exhibit which, as Mao says, are products of a life dedicated to the spirit of selfless communism and the ideal of proletarian internationalism. She does the tour day in, day out, in Chinese, outlining the virtues and outstanding contributions of the good doctor. As she collects the mandatory fee at the end of the tour, I ask her if she is a member of the Chinese Communist Party. She replies in the negative.

"Communism is a faith like Buddhism or Christianity," she says. "It's not enough for me."

Just as at the Bell Homestead, we leave, disappointed.

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Good news: The Offexploring website chose our blog entry from Xi'an, describing our train ride from and our visit to Chongqing, as its "Blog of the Day." Quite a compliment, says Siobhan.

Also, we managed to upload the album of photos from the summit of Huangshan Mountain. You can view them by going to photos and clicking on "Living on top of the world."

ps. Today's photo has nothing to do with the story. It's a library photo. Hopefully, we'll be able to upload more albums in the coming days.