His older brother, Kan Tat-Choy, became a wealthy entrepreneur and later built St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Causeway Bay.

In 1922, he accepted a position as General Editor at the Hong Kong YMCA's publications division, and in 1924 was appointed associate professor of religion at Yenching University, a post he held until 1927.

[1] Jian joined the Nationalist Party in 1926 and developed a close relationship with General Feng Yuxiang, the "Christian Warlord", who appointed him head of his political department[clarification needed] in 1927.

He recalled his experiences with the Kuomintang in his biography, 西北从军记 (Xibei congjun ji, Record of my military days in the northwest), which was published posthumously in 1982.

While in Mengshan, he served as a private tutor to the young Chen Wentong, who later gained fame as a wuxia writer under the pen name Liang Yusheng.

He wrote essays against the Anti-Christian movement in China, and translated Marshall Broomhall's biography of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to the country, as well as biologist John Merle Coulter's Religion and Science.

He inherited a proposal from his predecessor to convert the Guangzhou City god temple, which he saw as a relic of a superstitious and backward era, into a secular facility to promote the consumption of goods produced in Guangdong.

Although the provincial government supported the change, the conversion was highly unpopular with local citizens and in particular the temple's fortune-tellers, who alternately threatened and bribed Jian.