Kang Sheng - Origins

Origins

Kang Sheng (康生) was born in Dataizhuang (Chinese: 大臺莊; pinyin: Dà Tái Zhuāng) (administrated under Jiaonan County since 1946), Zhucheng County (Chinese: 諸城; pinyin: Zhū Chéng) to the northwest of Qingdao in Shandong Province to a landowning family, some of whom had been Confucian scholars. Kang was born Zhang Zongke (simplified Chinese: 张宗可; traditional Chinese: 張宗可; pinyin: Zhāng Zōngkě) but he adopted a number of pseudonyms – most notably Zhao Rong, but also (for his painting) Li Jushi—before settling on Kang Sheng in the 1930s. Some sources give his year of birth as being as early as 1893, but it has also been variously given as 1898, 1899 and 1903.

Kang received his elementary education at the Guanhai school for boys and later at the German School in Qingdao. As a teenager, he entered into an arranged marriage with Chen Yi, in 1915, with whom he had two children, a daughter, Zhang Yuying, and a son, Zhang Zishi. After graduating from the German School, Kang taught in a rural school in Zhucheng, Shandong in the early 1920s before leaving, possibly for a sojourn in Germany and France, and ultimately for Shanghai, where he arrived in 1924.

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