Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t15.2

v2.c15.s2.t15.2

Shanti Tseng was born in Fenghuang, Raoping (present-day Chaoan County, Guangdong Province). In 1918, he began to study at Xiamen Jimei Middle School. In 1922, he went to Singapore to teach in Tao Nan School and returned to China six months later. In 1924, he began to read the works of Rabindranath Tagore under the influence of his visit to China. In 1925, he went to India and studied in Visva-Bharati University founded by Tagore. Afterwards, he became a Chinese student of Gandhi and performed clerical jobs in Sabarmati Ashram. Gandhi gave him the name Shanti, the transliteration of the Sanskrit shānti, meaning ‘peace’. He returned to China in 1926 and worked with the Southeast Asia Chinese Newspaper between 1927 and 1937. He used to be the Chief Editor of ‘Nanyang Siang Pau’ and involved in the founding of many literary publications to promote the development of Malaysian and Chinese culture. During this period, he went to India for the second time in 1932 and visited Gandhi who was on a hunger strike. In 1937 after the Anti-Japanese War broke out, he organised ‘Overseas Chinese War Correspondents Communication Group’ to return to China to report on the war. After the war, he settled down in Tianjin. In December 1979, he was invited by Gandhi Peace Foundation to go to India to conduct research on Gandhi. He planned to complete a book of about 500,000 words called *A Non-Violent War