{"id":6458,"date":"2026-08-27T04:35:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/?p=6458"},"modified":"2026-08-27T04:35:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T08:35:52","slug":"a-foreigner-dedicated-to-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-bethune-memorial-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/original-writing\/6458\/","title":{"rendered":"A Foreigner \u2014 Dedicated to the 50th Anniversary of the Bethune Memorial House"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Zenglu Lu <\/strong>
\nWritten on August 18, 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a faraway northern land,\r\nwhere snow covers the forests and winter stretches across the earth,\r\na spirit of justice was born, and compassion took root.\r\n\r\nAcross that vast land,\r\nhe could have lived a life of honor\r\nas a physician\u2014far from the smoke of war, safe and secure.\r\nBut he heard something else\u2014far beyond the oceans,\r\nthe cry of a people in suffering.\r\n\r\nAnd so, he came.\r\n\r\nHe crossed mountains and seas in the name of justice.\r\nFrom the frozen forests of Canada,\r\nhe made his way to the mountains of China;\r\nfrom the safety of the clinic,\r\nhe walked straight into the chaos of war.\r\n\r\nHe did not share the blood of the Chinese people,\r\nyet he carried their wounds deep within his own heart.\r\nHe gave his strength, his skill, and ultimately his life,\r\nso that dawn might rise after the long night of war.\r\n\r\nWhy did he come?\r\n\r\nNot for fame.\r\nNot for fortune.\r\nNot for comfort.\r\n\r\nAnd not because he was bound by any obligation to a foreign land.\r\n\r\nHe came because\u2014\r\n\r\nhe believed in justice.\r\nHe believed in truth.\r\nHe believed that no people should ever be forced to remain silent in the face of humiliation and suffering.\r\n\r\nAnd so, he stood up.\r\n\r\nHe stood for justice.\r\nHe searched for truth.\r\nHe rose above nationality and chose responsibility.\r\n\r\nThe operating table was his battlefield.\r\nThe scalpel was the blade with which he fought death.\r\nThrough smoke and gunfire, amid the chaos of war,\r\nbeneath the shadow of death, \r\nhe bent over the wounded again and again,\r\nsaving lives that were slipping away.\r\n\r\nHundreds of times.\r\nThousands of times.\r\n\r\nHe forgot his exhaustion.\r\nHe forgot his pain.\r\nHe even forgot\u2014that he was simply a stranger who had come from far away.\r\n\r\nBecause in his eyes, pain has no nationality.\r\nLife has no borders.\r\nAnd justice belongs to no country.\r\n\r\nBut there was something deeper still.\r\nHe did not see the suffering of the Chinese people as someone else\u2019s suffering.\r\nHe did not see their struggle as someone else\u2019s struggle.\r\nHe made their liberation his own cause.\r\nHe made the hope of a people his own hope.\r\n\r\nWhat kind of spirit was this?\r\nIt was internationalism that crossed mountains and seas.\r\nIt was compassion that rose above borders.\r\nIt was the courage to stand up when others needed him.\r\nIt was an unwavering faith in truth.\r\n\r\nAnd above all\u2014\r\nit was the spirit of making another land one\u2019s own;\r\nof making another people\u2019s freedom one\u2019s own cause;\r\nof fighting for an ideal, and remaining faithful to it until the very end.\r\n\r\nHe was forty-nine.\r\n\r\nAnd there, in the midst of his greatest service,\r\nhis life came to an end.\r\n\r\nHe fell,\r\nbut the compassion of a physician remained forever in China.\r\n\r\nHe said goodbye,\r\nbut his idealism became part of the mountains and rivers of Taihang.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\nBethune\u2014\r\n\r\nHalf a century has passed.\r\n\r\nWhy do we still feel moved by you?\r\nWhy do we still look upon you with such admiration?\r\n\r\nBecause\u2014 justice without borders is the purest form of justice.\r\nAn ideal worth defending is an ideal worth honoring.\r\nAnd true courage is to be the one who carries the flame through the longest night.\r\n\r\nFifty years have passed.\r\n\r\nTime may weather the bricks and stones of this memorial,\r\nbut it cannot erase the name engraved deep in our history.\r\nYou came from the frozen forests of Canada,\r\nand walked into the fires of war in China.\r\nWhat you crossed was more than mountains and seas.\r\n\r\nYou crossed the boundaries of nationality, language, and culture.\r\nWhat you sought was more than excellence in medicine.\r\nYou believed in something greater\u2014\r\nthe dignity of human life and our shared humanity.\r\nCrossing mountains and seas, standing for justice.\r\n\r\nRising above nationality, searching for truth.\r\nThese simple but powerful words describe the choice you made.\r\nAnd they are also the answer you left for generations to come.\r\nPeople may not share the same skin color or nationality,\r\nyet they can share the same dream.\r\nThey may come from opposite sides of the world,\r\nyet still embrace another people as their brothers and sisters.\r\n\r\nBethune, you were a foreigner.\r\nBut in the hearts of millions of Chinese people,\r\nyou were never an outsider.\r\n\r\nBecause you proved, with your life,\r\nthat ideals can cross mountains and seas,\r\nthat justice can rise above borders,\r\nthat truth can outlive generations,\r\nand that a truly noble spirit can belong to all humanity.\r\n\r\nFifty years have passed.\r\n\r\nThis memorial has kept watch over your memory.\r\nAnd today, we sing your story through poetry.\r\n\r\nMay this light travel across the mountains of Taihang,\r\nacross the forests of Canada, across the vast river of time\u2014\r\nmay it illuminate the present,\r\nmay it illuminate the future,\r\nand may it light the way for a world where ideals never die.\r\n\r\nBethune\u2014a foreigner;\r\na man who crossed mountains and seas to stand for justice;\r\na man who rose above nationality in search of truth;\r\na man who made another people\u2019s freedom his own cause,\r\nwho fought for an ideal, and gave his life to that ideal.\r\n\r\nYou belong not only to China.\r\nYou belong not only to Canada.\r\nYou belong\u2014to the conscience we share as human beings,\r\nto justice, to truth, and to every generation that still needs courage and light.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Zenglu Lu Written on August 18, 2026 In a faraway northern land, where snow covers the forests and winter stretches across the earth, a spirit of justice was born, and compassion took root. Across that vast land, he could have lived a life of honor as a physician\u2014far from the smoke of war, safe and secure. But he heard something else\u2014far beyond the oceans, the cry of a people in suffering. And so, he came. He crossed mountains and seas in the name of justice. From the frozen forests of Canada, he made his way to the mountains of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-original-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6458"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6469,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6458\/revisions\/6469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoriamedia.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}