Mr. and Mrs. Ma, picture source "Home in Tsinghua"
Teachers and students of Gulangyu Fumin Primary School in the 1940s, courtesy of Yang Classxuan, Fumin Primary School is one of the earliest church schools in Gulangyu Island, Ma John and early flight
If I'm not mistaken, Ma John's home is on Zhangzhou Road, leaning on Fanzai Garden and Liao House, but unfortunately demolished...
The name Ma John apparently has ecclesiastical overtones, so much so that some reminiscence articles write him as "foreigner." I wonder if this boy born in Gulangyu Island at the end of the 19th century has abnormal physical strength and blood flow? Ma John's parents died since childhood, very poor, very late to study, 13 years old to go to Fumin Primary School with the help of relatives and friends, some official sources say that it is a private school, Fumin Primary School is obviously not a general private school, if the typical church school as an old-style private school, it is obviously a misunderstanding.
Then again, before Ma John was 13 years old, he probably ran wild on this island all day long, and it was the heavenly wind and waves of Gulangyu Island that cast his strong and sensitive body, which probably belonged to the kind of people who went up the mountain to fight tigers and went down to the sea to catch turtles.
In 1944, Ma John encountered an extremely thrilling scene on the streets of Kunming: two carriages came head-on, collided with each other, squeezing Ma John, who was riding a bicycle, in the middle, he actually jumped up, jumped out of danger, rolled on the ground a few times, and escaped from danger like a character in a martial arts novel. If the figures in the literature and history materials are correct, Professor Ma John of the Southwest United University is 62 years old this year, it is said that he is more than ancient and still insists on not wearing cotton clothes in winter, "three hundred and sixty days a year, whether it is summer or cold winter, Mr. Ma John is always a white shirt, a white single pants, his dress can not see the change of seasons at all", his voice is loud and powerful, talking to thousands of people can not use loudspeakers, I don't know what kind of physical quality this is.
John Mar won two extraordinary gold medals in his youth.
One is the "International Athletics Games" one-mile running champion held by the Shanghai YMCA in May 1905, this championship is not easy to come by, he holds the determination to compete with foreigners, has been running ahead, who knows that the physical strength is too overdrawn, halfway surpassed by Japanese athletes, but he would rather "die on the track to surpass the Japanese!" The 22-year-old sophomore who entered St. John's University did his best to sprint, surpassing the Japanese by 50 yards and finally winning the championship. Another gold medal was the 880m gold medal at the first National Games in 1910, when he was 28 years old.
Perhaps because of his gifts, an unnamed man funded him until he graduated from college. In Gulangyu, this is a common occurrence, because the Bible says, "When you give alms, don't let the left hand know what the right hand does."
Ma John graduated from St. John's University in Shanghai at the age of 29, but the medical doctor did not become a doctor who seemed more decent and well-paid to outsiders, because his ideal was to revitalize sports, and he believed that only sports could completely change the national constitution. In this way, this Gulangyu man from the cold of Qing dynasty taught physical education at Tsinghua University for 52 years, went to the United States twice, studied at Springfield Sports University, obtained a master's degree, and began to serve as the director of the physical education department of Tsinghua University in September 1920, he was the third, the first two directors were American.
It is said that he just arrived at Tsinghua to teach chemistry, but he especially cared about physical education, Tsinghua school sports activities in the Chinese Under the initiative of Ma John, athletics projects have won 37 North China Games championships, creating 20 national high records. In 1925, Tsinghua School won many championships in North China football, basketball, baseball and so on... Outstanding results.
Ma John's hard work was not in vain, but the strange thing is that the first president of Tsinghua University, Luo Jialun, believes that sports is a thing of play and jumping, and there is no need to set up a professor in the physical education department.
At this time, Tsinghua public opinion was in an uproar, and foreign schools also hired John Ma with high salaries, but he ignored it and still concentrated on the physical education and research work of his school, and the next year he led the team to Tianlu to participate in the North China Football Tournament, Tsinghua won the championship again, the football team returned to Beijing, the teachers and students of the whole school spontaneously welcomed him, Luo Jialun had to restore his status as a professor, Luo Jialun was also a very cute person, so he awarded a silver cup to Ma John who worked hard regardless of fame and fortune.
"The silver cup has since been kept in his living room." So said John Ma's grandson.
John Ma has been appointed as the director of the Games and Olympic Selection Committee and led the Chinese team to the Far East Games. In 1936, he served as the head coach of the Chinese athletics team, leading the team to Germany to participate in the 11th Olympic Games held in Berlin, when the performance of Chinese athletes was of course not ideal, so he went to Europe and the Soviet Union and other countries to investigate and lecture, trying to improve the physical fitness of the Chinese people by combining popularization and improvement.
Ma John is a medical student, he pays great attention to science in physical education teaching and training, he has written many teaching materials and training methods for athletics, balls and other projects, and he attaches great importance to sportsmanship civilization, his famous saying is "the game can not be very concerned about winning or losing, but we must talk about morality, the ball can lose, morality can not lose!" He once published an article in Tsinghua Weekly at the time, saying, "Those who are engaged in sports, morality is the most important ... Otherwise, although the strength is as great as an ox, it will be like an unruly horse, and the unrestrained fighting will not be the mother of harm, so that its future life will not be shallow, so the Ministry of Sports will pay great attention to this..."
The forerunner and founder of China's physical education is not only of high moral character, but also a versatile and full of interest in life, he once composed school songs for Southwest United University, and he often encouraged future generations to "spend their lives as gracefully and freely as dancing waltzes."
Mr. Ying Jinxiang, a professor at the Department of Chinese of Xiamen University, is a graduate student of Tsinghua University, and she once recalled Mr. Ma John, who taught sports in those years, and Mr. Ying said that it was a healthy and clean, always short dressed but gentlemanly, interesting old gentleman.
According to Ma Xun's grandson Ma Xun, Ma John loves photography, can play mandolin, he has six children, often holds family concerts, he even filmed many videos of the Tsinghua student movement, with the white wall of the family as the screen, the whole family often gets together to "watch movies"... This is the colorful and colorful family life of John Ma after leaving Gulangyu Island, and such a healthy and clear life is often a portrayal of the daily life of the solid and cultured family in Gulangyu Island at that time.