We name him “the Chinese of Montargis”. It is a bronze statue, donated by the sculptor Li Xiaochao and entitled The Teacher, named Mr. Master. The nation college trainer, in a employee’s jacket and pants, smiles, barely bent, arms clasped behind his again, on the entrance to the city. What is that this Chinese work doing in a city led by Les Républicains mayor Benoît Digeon?
This sculpture, put in in June 2014, is a reminder of the lengthy historical past that this Loiret sub-prefecture has with communist China. At the initiative of Li Shizeng (1881-1973), a Chinese pupil who got here to France to coach in agriculture and biochemistry, the Work-Study program welcomed some 4,000 Chinese college students all through France within the 1910s and Nineteen Twenties.
Montargis holds a particular place within the hearts of this technology of Chinese executives, significantly due to the nice and cozy welcome they acquired. Among them are Cai Hesen, companion of Mao Zedong and theoretician of the Chinese path in the direction of communism, but additionally Wang Ruofei, additionally a communist ideology, Cai Chang, first feminine member of the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chen Yi, who can be minister of international affairs, and two future stars of the celebration, Zhou Enlai and, above all, Deng Xiaoping.
Long historic detour
The sq. in entrance of Montargis station, embellished with a really socialist realist bas-relief to the glory of the Work-Study program, now bears the title of the “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping. This entire story may be very properly instructed on the Historical Museum of Franco-Chinese Friendship, inaugurated in 2016, in addition to by Peiwen Wang, president of the Amitié Chine-Montargis affiliation, which organizes Mandarin programs and college exchanges between the 2 international locations. In truth, Montargis is healthier identified in mainland China than by the Chinese in France, who’re much less uncovered to the propaganda of the CCP, which made the “Venice of Gâtinais” one of many many levels of its march in the direction of energy.
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