As he recounts in Rainbow World, on his first shore leave, he and his shipmates encountered a stone in Tokyo with musical notation on it; they sang the melody, as best they could.

[citation needed] Watson left Japan in February 1946, was discharged from the Navy, and was accepted into Columbia University on the G.I.

Once there, he secured three positions in Kyoto: as an English teacher at Doshisha University, as a graduate student and research assistant to Yoshikawa Kōjirō, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Kyoto University, and as a tutor in English, giving private lessons.

In subsequent years, Watson became friends with Gary Snyder, who lived in Kyoto in the 1950s, and through him Cid Corman and Allen Ginsberg.

[citation needed] In 1956, Watson received a PhD from Columbia for his dissertation "Ssu-ma Ch'ien: The Historian and His Work", a study of Sima Qian.

He and Donald Keene frequently participated in the seminars that William Theodore de Bary conducted at Columbia.

He devoted much of his time to translation, both of literary works, and of more routine texts such as advertisements and instruction manuals.

[citation needed] Despite his extensive activity in translating ancient Chinese texts, he did not visit China until he spent three weeks there in the summer of 1983, with expenses paid by the Soka Gakkai.