On the shoulders of giants
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Kong spent her childhood in Shanghai with He, who had suffered a stroke and was often in hospital. As a result she spent a lot of time in the care of her nanny.
"I liked singing and dancing, but everyone in the house walked and talked softly. I could only sing to myself, humming a melody, picturing the stage and audience in my mind," she recalls.
She was reunited with her parents in Beijing, in 1978, and says the family of four suffered many hardships.
"We lived solely on my mother's salary from the Commission on Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense, since my father had already lost his job," Kong says.
At a primary school in Beijing, Kong felt the pressure of prying eyes and people eager to judge her because of her grandfather's influence.
She was admitted to what is now Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang University), in 1992, and majored in English literature. After graduating she joined the start-up company Taikang Life Insurance Corporation.
In 1999 she went to the United States and earned a master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
While she was studying abroad, there were two questions that lingered in her mind: "What is happening in China?" and "Why is it happening?"
She was offered various explanations but Kong now believes that one has to go back to Mao and his pioneering generation for the answer.
Her mother's memoir in 2000, My Father Mao Zedong, was a revelation and decided her eventual career path.
"My mother lived with my grandfather for 15 years and wrote about her experiences and observations. Unlike her, I had to seek other ways to figure out the answers to what I didn't understand," she says.
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