15 Facts About Kang Tongbi

Kang Tongbi, romanized as Kang Tung Pih, was the daughter of Kang Youwei, a Chinese reformer and political figure of the late Qing dynasty and early Republican era.

Kang Tongbi's family was relatively wealthy in traditional China, and Kang Tongbi's father kept several wives and concubines.

Kang Tongbi hastily left the country with his family and would spend the next 14 years travelling the world.

Kang Tongbi's father was a noted calligrapher who taught her traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy.

Kang Tongbi graduated from Hartford Public High School, the second oldest public secondary school in the United States.

Kang Tongbi attended Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts and then Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1907, Kang Tongbi became the first Asian student to be enrolled at Barnard College.

In 1909, Kang Tongbi earned an associate degree in Journalism from Barnard College in Manhattan.

Kang Tongbi was deeply involved in the women's movement in Shanghai, advocating women's rights through meetings and speeches.

Kang Tongbi was an editor and major contributor to Nuxuebao, one of the first women's journals in China.

Kang Tongbi is remembered for her biography of Kang Youwei, published in 1958.

Kang Tongbi's husband was Luo Chang, a young staffer at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, Japan.

Kang Tongbi followed her husband when the latter was assigned to the Chinese consulate in Denmark, and later moved on to the United States where her father was already residing.

In 1909, at age twenty-one, Kang Tongbi gave birth to a daughter, Luo Yifeng.

Kang Tongbi lived in mainland China after the communist revolution in China in 1949.