Diarra Boubacar teaches local doctors in Honghe, Yunnan Province how to treat a patient. Photo: Courtesy of Diarra Boubacar

Having called China home for nearly three decades, the "African Norman Bethune," as he is best known by Chinese fans, mostly in the countryside of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces where he has promoted AIDS prevention, treated countless patients and trained thousands of local doctors, Diarra Boubacar, 49, lives a very different life than people in his native Mali.

Though little known by Malians at home, the Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) graduate's work in rural parts of China, where he adopts a blend of ancient healing forms and Western medicine, has earned him a winning reputation in China. He is an Internet sensation on the mainland today, and was even last week voted the winner of Tianjin TV's 2013 Ten Foreigners Touching the Heart of China awards, in which fans applauded his dedication to improving the health conditions of local residents in remote regions, where many do not have access to the kind of advanced medical care available at hospitals in big cities. And last year, for his outstanding achievements in training Chinese doctors at the grass-roots level, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs named him a Good Samaritan.

Boubacar, who now resides in the Yunnan capital of Kunming, has spent the bulk of his 19 years as a professional doctor in China traveling to remote parts of Yunnan and Sichuan, where he has altogether provided more than 4,000 doctor students with the basic training needed to help local residents suffering from non-emergent health conditions. Though he says it is difficult to compare the effectiveness of TCM with Western medicine, given that "the two are totally different," he says that he has a deep trust in TCM.

"In rural areas (of China), where people are traumatized by illness such as rheumatic diseases, arthritis and other diseases, TCM evidently proves to be more effective than Western medicine," Boubacar, who has two children with his Chinese wife, told the Global Times in fluent Chinese.

Father's influence

Boubacar said that he remembers being interested in TCM from an early age, when he was exposed to the medical profession through his father, a doctor for the International Red Cross in Mali, who "had a great influence" on him.

In 1984, at the age of 20, Boubacar came to China to learn Putonghua at Beijing Language and Culture University, before the Malian University graduate of medicine was accepted to Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1986. He graduated in 1994, when he went to Chengdu to pursue a PhD in TCM and worked as a TCM doctor at a local hospital.

Five years later, well aware of the medical imbalances between city and countryside patients, he decided that he wanted to do more to help people in remote areas receive adequate medical care. By 1999, he began working in rural Yunnan after being invited by Doctors Without Borders.

He spent much of his time in the province's Sancun county countryside, providing training to local residents there. The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) has since dropped off sharply, he said.

"Before, each household had at least one TB patient, but now people are seldom infected by the disease," he said.

Much of the work, especially the AIDS prevention care that Boubacar has done in China's remote areas, has also included public hygiene outreach in addition to free examinations and medicines, as many places, such as Sichuan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, he remembers, was "full of shockingly backward living conditions," while people in Sancun county did not previously separate livestock from their living quarters, he said. 

Persistent care

Though Boubacar was reluctant to speak about the challenges he had to overcome as a black man in China to gain the trust of locals, who had never seen a person with skin as dark as his before, he said that he eventually won them over by persistently doing the best job he could - so that people could see that he was "here to do good."

"My father used to tell me to treat your first patient as if he or she is your last one," he said. "I never understood better then what he meant - if you don't take good care of your first patient, then he or she will be the last one that comes to you."

Over the years, much of the work Boubacar has accomplished has come either at his own expense, or from funding he has sought out from international and national nongovernmental organizations.

Zhang Ye, a countryside doctor from Yunnan's Yuanyang county, who had low literacy levels before she began training under Boubacar, can now write prescriptions and treat simple illnesses such as cold, cough and fever.

"If it weren't for Diarra (Boubacar), I'd never be able to help the farmers in my village," said Zhang, in his 50s. "They prefer to come to me rather than go to a hospital in the city because as farmers, they're not comfortable in cities, and it costs a lot of money to see a doctor at a city hospital."

Boubacar, who has not returned home for over five years, says that the kindness of villagers makes it too hard to leave China.

"Once, I was leaving Yunnan's Zhongdian county after providing medical treatment to locals there, and everyone, all the villagers came out to see me off. Some of them even picked flowers for me and hung them on my car - I was so moved."

Still, critics wonder why he has stayed away from home so long, when countless impoverished people in his country could use his help. Boubacar doesn't see it that way, or such a distinction between borders.

"Wherever I am is wherever my country is," he said. "The health condition of farmers in China's rural areas matters a lot in a country where farmers are the majority of the total population. It's also a major public health concern.

"I'm happy to dedicate my life to helping Chinese farmers," he said.