Suchergebnisse

Of all intellectuals, the most highly respected and appreciated by Vietnamese society are the doctors. Indeed, it is hardly surprising that they should enjoy the esteem of a society the great majority of whose members are uneducated, impoverished, and beset by chronic disease and sickness. However, the reasons are twofold; medical degrees are academically superior to all others, and medicine, of all the professions, is the most useful on the purely practical plane. The doctors themselves are accorded the honorific title of "Thay," and the medical profession is popularly referred to by the descriptive phrase "savers of people and helpers of life." This is why, on the thirtieth anniversary of the Indo-Chinese Communist Party and the fifteenth anniversary of the Government of the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam, the "Doctor of Doctors," Ho Dac Di, who is Chairman of the North Vietnamese Medical Association as well as Director of the University and Specialist Colleges, was invited to make a speech. Here is what Dr. Ho Dac Di said on that occasion:The future of the intellectuals is a glorious one, because their activities bind them closely to the proletarian masses who are the masters of the world, the masters of their own country, the masters of their history, and masters of themselves…. On this, the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Party, all those classes who work with their brains, and the scientists in particular, sincerely own their debt of gratitude to the Party and proclaim their complete confidence in the enlightened leadership of the Party, as well as in the glorious future of the fatherland. They give their firm promise that they, together with the other classes of the people, will protect the great achievements of the revolution.

The third Congress of China's Literary and Art Workers, the first since the Hundred Flowers Campaign, was held in Peking from July 22 to August 13 "to review and assess" the literary and artistic achievements in the years between 1953 and 1960, "summarise and exchange experience, further define the road of development of socialist art and literature, and consider the tasks to be faced in the coming years." The presence of Liu Shao-ch'i, Chou En-lai, and other political leaders and the large space which thePeople's Dailydevoted to the meeting indicated its importance. Of the 2,300 delegates there were professionals and amateurs working in local governments and the services and from them a praesidium of over 180 members was elected before the long speeches on the opening day began. Kuo Mo-jo, as the President of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, first spoke a few words of welcome and then went on to outline the circumstances under which the Congress was convoked and the general political lines along which China's art and literature had been and would be developing. These lines were repeated once more, and elaborated, by Lu Ting-yi, Director of the Party's Propaganda Department and Deputy Premier, who represented the Party and the Government, and subsequently they were to be repeated many times over. The third speaker on the opening day to recite them was Chou Yang, Vice-President of the Federation and a Deputy Director of the Party's Propaganda Department, who also laid down six tasks for the Congress.