the kongdan foundation

More than twenty-five years ago, when I first started to go to China regularly, in addition to adopting our two daughters (Katie from Maoming in May 1997 and Emily in Urumqi in October 1999), I began working to put together the sister city relationship between Boynton Beach, Florida and Qufu in Shandong Province.  I was the Neighborhood Specialist for the City of Boynton Beach at the time. Traveling to Qufu on the way to Urumqi was to approach a company there who specialized in ancient Chinese construction who had built International Chinese designed parks in several countries. I wanted them to come to Florida to build one in Boynton Beach. They came to Florida, but nothing was done regarding the park.

However, I made many lasting friendships in Qufu, and we decided to begin a sister city relationship between our two cities. Among the many friends I made were members of the Western Shandong Province Christian Church Association whose numbers then were about 35,000 members. This was for all of western Shandong Province. On the visits to Florida by the Qufu sister city delegation the members accompanied me to the Unity Church in Delray Beach. They were impressed with Unity and relayed their interest when they returned home to Qufu, which of course was the home and birthplace of Confucius. The sister city relationship grew over the years with reciprocating visits between Boynton Beach and Qufu. Most notably the Young Artist Competition for junior high and high school students. One visit from the Chinese delegation was cut short because they were in Florida when the planes crashed into the twin towers of 9/11.

The gentleman who played a central role in our relationship was our Chinese interpreter and tour guide named Zhu Bensheng (Ben). Over the years he and I became good friends. After the visit to Unity of Delray Beach in Florida we explored the idea of creating what we would call the China Daily Word. Reverend Nancy Norman from Unity led a delegation to China and Qufu to meet with the church officials and we/they decided to use my foundation to publish the Daily Word in China with the financial assistance from Unity of Delray Beach.

By coincidence, Ben’s wife Pei had been the Secretary of the Church Association in Qufu for more than twenty years. Their daughter Sally was later to come to Unity Village to study Unity but that didn’t work out. The picture is of Sally, Pei, and Ben.

For two year we published a thousand copies a month during 2006 and 2007 of the China Daily Word. Over 25,000 copies were distributed under the auspices of the Christian Church Association of Western Shandong Province and The Kongdan Foundation.  Kongdan was to become my Chinese name and as the China Daily Word was distributed throughout cities and towns throughout western Shandong Provinces people began to recognize the name Kongdan. (Qufu was the birthplace and home of Confucius more than 2500 years ago. Kong was Confucius family name). Over the years on my official sister city visits I would regularly meet with the mayor and officials in Qufu and appeared on local television often. Five years later when I began living and teaching at the Confucius school in the old city and at the university in Qufu, I was pretty well known as a “foreign teacher”, the sister city program, and by the Daily Word. Qufu is a small town really and I was to become a local fixture. That I was permitted to teach English at both schools was amazing to many of my friends. I have many stories but enough for now.

Over the years the China Daily Word became quite popular as a Christian magazine. It had been distributed in villages, small towns and cities throughout western Shandong Province. By 2012 when I was teaching at the university, the church association membership had grown from 35,000 members to over 750,000. Or so I was told. Recently it was conveyed that the China Daily Word we had published had been seen by over four million people and was considered to be a keepsake in many households. Several times when I was teaching, I would visit the villages of my students where as “Kongdan” it became a celebration of sorts. Although the university came to frown on these visits as I was seen as more than just my students “foreign teacher”. In many villages they have something like a public library where copies could be checked out. If not returned they would come to get it. Several of my students at the university knew of Kongdan and had been introduced to English by studying the China Daily Word (It was published in both English and Chinese) through their high school years.

The Kongdan Foundation and Kongdan are far better known in China than Dan DeCarlo is in the USA. For a more in-depth reading of my experiences in China, look here on my website under Books to Qufu and Confucius that describes my teaching and experiences in China. It remains unpublished except here on my website.