"Why did you come to China?"
"The person I admire the most is Chairman Mao!"
"What influenced you the most?"
"It's the Chinese revolution!"
"China's 25,000-mile march is much greater than Moses' exodus from Egypt!"
This is the answer that Hanchun gave with a smile when facing the interview in his later years.
Hanchun is Yang Zhenning's senior sister, born in 1921 in the United States to an intellectual family, originally named Joan Hinton. After graduating from school, she became a member of the Manhattan Project in the United States, and a few years after the successful atomic bomb test in the United States, she came to China in 1948 to find Yan'an, the sacred place in her heart.
Ms. Hanchun can be described as a true revolutionary, and what she wants to do is something that is truly beneficial to mankind, not a narrow historical cycle of changing the banner of the king at the head of the city and singing about my appearance. Her eldest brother and friends went to China in the late '30s and said that there was such a group of people there who were really looking for a new way out for the people at the bottom, and hearing them talk about Chairman Mao's faith deeply affected her.
Hanchun had this self-statement in his later years, "Looking back on the road I have traveled, from elementary school to graduate school, I cannot say that I am unhappy. But how narrow is the original view of happiness compared to standing among the people, transforming the whole society with everyone, and building a new country with both hands where no one oppresses people, people exploit people, and is beautiful and rich. Some people transform the world only for their own class, but this happiness built on the suffering of most people is not true happiness, and it will eventually be wiped out by history. ”
To build a society where no one exploits people and no one oppresses them, Hanchun is a true idealist and has fought for his ideals all his life.
In 1980, Hanchun wrote a self-report about her journey. Her dislike of the United States stems from dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, this idea is estimated to be incomprehensible to Chinese, they all say that the drop is good, why not drop a few more, the United States ended World War II.
And Hanchun does not mean that Japan cannot be hated, but doubts the motives of the United States, because by that time Germany had already surrendered, there was only one Japan left, and what was beaten by China had collapsed, and if you didn't drop the atomic bomb, they would have to surrender too. And the two cities you bombed, the real warmongers did not kill a single one. Then the purpose of the United States is obvious, first, to tell the world that I ended World War II, and second, not to break with war criminals, but only to deter Japan and lay the groundwork for the later takeover and control of Japan.
The scientists involved in the development of the atomic bomb were dumbfounded, Hanchun said, the entire research on nuclear physics is actually controlled by the military, I found that my scholarship is also issued by the military, if they take the atomic bomb for something, we people engaged in research and development have no ability to stop it.
"A series of facts made me slowly realize that the military, the government, and the big monopoly capitalists all wear a pair of pants, and their interests are the same." At this time, Hanchun ran to rural America and factory floors, and she wanted to see what the world outside of nuclear physics was like.
As a result, she didn't know what to look at, she was shocked when she went to the southern United States and saw such a scene: tens of thousands of temporary migrant workers live very hard, many do not even have houses, they are thatched sheds, they move to the country on a quarterly basis, the grapes are ripe to pick grapes, apples are ripe to pick apples, is a mobile flexible employment, exploited by the foreman, the salary is very low.
When I went to the factory floor, the situation was even worse, there were many underage child laborers in the workshop, the workers worked very long, up to 12 hours, and they had to work two shifts at night, and the food was relatively poor, and it was not fresh, they were all pre-made dishes, and many people lived in confusion, never thinking about the meaning of life, like a group of human flesh machines.
This kind of situation at the bottom, Hanchun did not know before, because her family is okay, she has been isolated from the poor since childhood, and those in power rarely go to the bottom to see, that is, burying their heads in the office and writing nonsense, saying how the people of the whole country live better than the Soviet Union, at that time, everything had to be compared with the Soviet Union, so they filmed a lot of films of urban families or elite families, in order to prove that the United States is superior, only by learning the American system, the country has a way out, and mankind has hope.
Hanchun was extremely disgusted by this kind of propaganda, either as an ostrich and buried his head in not seeing it; Or is it deliberate false propaganda. The cold spring has given rise to deep doubts, why is the productivity of the United States so developed, and there are so many poor people struggling to survive. Why throw out the milk, blow up the house and not feed the poor? Why is it that too much coal is produced to sell, while coal miners freeze to death? She couldn't figure it out.
Later, her brother Hinton and her brother's good friend Yang Zao sent her some progressive books, including the history of the struggles of black Americans, Indians and other peoples, as well as some Marxist-Leninist books, and told her that Chinese was doing things that were "rich and poor, equal to the noble", and Hanchun began to find answers to his confused things.
"At that time, my house was very lively, and everyone came together to enthusiastically debate domestic and foreign events. I used to just listen to them because I thought I was a science, and politics had little to do with me. But the atomic bombing linked politics to my science, forcing me to start thinking about things. So who does the science I study serve? I felt that my thinking was too simple and one-sided, and I began to interact with some progressives. Hanchun said.
Through these friends, Hanchun became interested in China, and in 1948, she went to Shanghai, and although her relatives and friends around her objected, she did not hesitate, she said: "This is the shattering of a dream, and the beginning of another faith!" ”
In 1949, Hanchun finally arrived at the place that he had longed for for many years, Yan'an, where he married Yang Zao in a cave, and then we walked for two days to work in the Wayaobao Agricultural Tools Factory where Yang Zao was located.
Considering that Hanchun came from an economically developed country, they were specially arranged with better accommodation, but they did not accept it, and wrote to Chairman Mao, saying that they could not be treated differently, and that they wanted to join the masses, and the chairman replied and agreed.
Hanchun mingled with the masses of the people, and in the places where she worked, she was judged by the criterion of "whether it was beneficial to the people" and everything was put on the table, whether it was the factory director or ordinary employees, harming the interests of the people, and everyone criticized him.
Hanchun later volunteered to go to the pastoral area to herd cattle, saying that after the establishment of the country, the people needed nutrition, and she wanted to make a contribution in this regard, so she went to Mongolia to establish a new pasture, the Sanbian Pasture, to help improve the local cattle and sheep, and later transferred to the state-owned Caotan Farm on the outskirts of Xi'an to take charge of the dairy work.
In her work, she felt that the power of the people is infinite, she said: "I come from an industrially developed country, and I often take it for granted that I am better than farmers in business. Therefore, I often go to work with subjectivism, and only after hitting a nail do I think of consulting experienced people. When I was on the three sides, I held a book I brought from the United States to learn how to make cheese, and after a year without success, I ran to consult Mongolians who had experience in making cheese. When I was raising ducks in the grass beach, I didn't accept the lesson of making cheese, hatched two batches of ducklings, and as a result, they all died because of the poor conditions, so I remembered to ask someone with experience. Through many similar lessons, I have gradually realized that a person's ability is limited, relying on the strength of the masses, and the masses have wisdom and talent. ”
Hanchun and his wife have spent their whole lives in China, making outstanding contributions to China's animal husbandry and agricultural mechanization, and in August 2004, China began to implement the "green card" system, and Hanchun became the first foreigner to obtain a "green card" in China. In December 2003, Hanchun's husband Yang Zao died in Beijing at the age of 85. In the early morning of June 8, 2010, Comrade Han Chun, a great internationalist fighter, died of illness in Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
Writer Wei Wei said: "Although the Hanchun couple are a minority in their respective countries, they represent the conscience of mankind and the direction of world development. ”
Before his death, Hanchun left this sentence, "I have the best vision of the world, and I have devoted my life to practicing it." I adore Chairman Mao because he is the only one who gives me hope in the world. ”