Kong Fanjun (December 17, 1901 – December 25, 1991), from Qufu, Shandong, also known as Fanjun, graduated from the Department of History and Geography at Beijing Normal University.

Kong Fanjun pursued progress throughout her life. While still a student, she participated in the May Fourth Movement, and later, on March 9, 1951, she joined the Jiu San Society. She devoted her life to education and achieved remarkable success in the fields of linguistics and lexicography.

After graduating from university, Kong Fanjun worked as a Chinese language teacher at Nankai High School in Tianjin. She was passionate about researching folklore and children’s education. She authored Shandong Children’s Games (published by National Peking University as part of the Chinese Folklore Society’s folklore series) and wrote the preface for Republican Era Rural Children’s Games by the Shang Can Institute. This work, based on investigations of rural children’s games during the Republican period, was published in two parts in 1926 and 1933. In the preface, Kong Fanjun elaborated in detail on the value, methods, and classification of collecting folk entertainment, offering significant guidance for folklore research.

In 1929, at the inception of the Chinese Dictionary Compilation Office, Kong Fanjun, along with her husband Mr. Xiao Jialin, joined as the entrusted editor for the “Civilian Dictionary, Category A.” This marked the beginning of her career in lexicography. To promote the national language in Shandong, the couple traveled to Shandong, working at the Shandong Popular Education Institute, where they engaged in social research, teaching and training, and editing publications.

From September 24 to 26, 1934, as one of the Shandong representatives, Kong Fanjun participated in the National Language Romanization Representatives Conference held in Jinan. She actively promoted the use of Romanized national language and even composed an elegiac couplet in Romanized national language for Mr. Bai Dizhou.

In December 1950, Kong Fanjun joined the People’s Education Press, becoming a principal editor of the Xinhua Dictionary at the newly established Xinhua Lexicography Division. In November 1954, the Xinhua Dictionary was successfully published. During this period, she also contributed to the compilation of Frequently Used Characters and Words (1953).

On December 1, 1954, the dictionary editing office (Xinhua Lexicography Division) was transferred to the Guji Publishing House under the Ministry of Culture’s Publishing Bureau. On July 1, 1956, the dictionary editing office (Xinhua Lexicography Division) merged into the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and, along with editors from the Chinese Dictionary Compilation Office and some staff from the Institute of Linguistics, formed the Lexicon Editing Office. From then on, Kong Fanjun dedicated herself to the compilation of the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, becoming one of its principal editors. Owing to her outstanding expertise, in the 1960s she was also commissioned by the Institute of Linguistics to engage in exchanges with Romanian language experts and completed many important projects for the institute.