Kang Tongbi

Kang Tongbi (; 1887–1969), also 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.

Early life In 1880, Kang was born in Southern China.

Activities in China

Little information is available in English on Kang's life after she left Barnard College, but it is known that after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, she returned to China, where she continued to agitate for feminist causes. She was deeply involved in the women's movement in Shanghai, advocating women's rights through meetings and speeches.

Kang was an editor and major contributor to Nüxuebao (Women's Education), one of the first women's journals in China. After the journal folded, Kang continued to crusade for women's rights. Like her father, she took a stand against the practice of foot-binding, establishing and co-leading a Tianzuhui (Natural Feet Society) with other Chinese feminists that served as a base of operations for their activities. She was part of the effort to organize the various Shanghai women's groups into a united Shanghai Women's Association, which petitioned the Nationalist government in Nanjing for a new constitution under the slogan, "Down with the warlords and up with equality between men and women". Kang Tongbi is also remembered for her biography of Kang Youwei, published in 1958.

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

There is no indication of the match having been arranged by their respective families, as was usually the case among upper-class Chinese at the time. 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 gave birth to a daughter, Luo Yifeng. Kang had two children.

In 1911, Kang returned to China. Kang lived in mainland China after the communist revolution in China in 1949. Kang was humiliated by the red guards and her daughter Luo Yifeng jailed during the Cultural Revolution. On August 17, 1969, Kang died in China.

Gallery

In popular culture Science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson depicted a character named Kang Tongbi in his counterfactual novel The Years of Rice and Salt, a speculation on how world history might have turned out if Western Civilization had been wiped out by the plague epidemic of the 14th century, but it is not known whether the reference is deliberate.