Tsinghua University set up examinations in Shanghai to send students overseas for study on Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program.

The eldest daughter, E-tu Zen Sun, earned a PhD at Harvard University under John K. Fairbank and published widely.

When the group of friends was drenched in a sudden downpour while rowing on Lake Cayuga, Ren composed a long poem in classical Chinese which Hu criticized for using "dead phrases of three thousand years ago" for such an everyday event.

[7] "One Day" featured the use of realism and direct dialogue, which she described as "sincere and faithful" compared to previous fictional works with lots of detail.

[8] Hu a leader in the heated debates about establishing the new Chinese literature, wrote in the forward to her 1928 collection, entitled Raindrops: Returning to China in 1920, she taught Western history at Peking University.

[11] In 1932, she was one of eight founders, along with Hu, of the magazine of literary and political commentary, Duli Pinglun (Independent Critic), which published articles of a Western liberal orientation.

But her critical essays in Duli Pinglun on Sichuan made her unwelcome, and she returned to Peking, only to flee at the onset of the war in 1937 to Shanghai, then Hong Kong, Kunming, and eventually Chongqing, the wartime capital.