Who the hell is K'ang P'ei-ch'en?

[Comrade B]

I am reading Red Star Over China right now for a class on China under Mao, and I came across this name, K'ang P'ei-ch'en, he was listed among the people Mao says he met while working in a Library, the other people he is listed next to are all in some governing positions at the time he was telling his stories, but this person was apparently a KKK member apparently, and there is no further description of him...
Anyone know who he is? How did a Chinese person become a KKK member, and why was he important enough for Mao to list him next to the people involved in the politics of China at the time?

[Dimentio]

Is the KKK referring to an organisation with the same acronyme but with different politics maybe?

[khad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katipunan

http://www.bookcase.com/%7Eclaudia/mt/archives/Katipunan.bmp
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Philippine_revolution_flag_kkk1.svg

[Comrade B]

In the text it writes the name out
K'ang P'ei-ch'en, who later joined the Ku Klux Klan in California I found the section of text that it is from online on this website (http://www.humanrights-china.org/meetingchina/Meeti2002114155623.htm).

[heiss93]

Yes I remember reading the passage. Snow himself seemed sceptical writing [!!!--E.S.]; next to it.

Not sure exactly Mao would have heard about it, perhaps Kang remained in touch with folks in China. The 1920s was an especially racist time in the USA. But I suppose it is not impossible. Asians in the south tred a perilous line between colored and white. And during the 1960s Asians sat on the white citizen's council. And during the 1920s half the Democratic Party was in the grips of the KKK. So it wasn't exactly a fringe group. Except it would make more sense that he would be allowed to join in the South than California where the main enemy was the Chinese and Japanese. So I could perhaps see it happening in the south, where Kang could be seen as just not black. But I really doubt it could happen in California.

[Outinleftfield]

Maybe this was derived from another work that said he joined the KKK and the person who read it simply assumed KKK meant "Ku Klux Klan" when it meant a different organization.

[Comrade B]

Snow does write that he is writing this 3rd hand in a sense, Mao's stories in his local dialect, through one of Mao's officials (in mainstream Chinese?) to the writer, who then rewrites it into English, it is quite possible that there was some sort of mix up.
I would imagine that the KKK in California would be particularly racist towards Chinese, being one of/(the?) largest immigrant group in the state.