After their marriage, the couple were based in Beijing as prominent translators of Chinese literature into English in the latter half of the 20th century, working for the Foreign Languages Press.

[3] Their work on The Dream of Red Mansions, an 18th-century novel still read by almost all educated Chinese, was interrupted by their imprisonment, but their faithful, readable three-volume translation appeared in 1978.

[1] During the 1980s, Gladys Yang translated the works of other Chinese authors for the British publishing house, Virago Press, which specialized in women's writing and books on feminist topics.

Later in life, the couple spoke out against the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre,[2] and their unpublished memoirs were officially banned in China as a result.

[5] When the couple were identified as class enemies and kept in separate prisons from 1968 for four years, their children were sent to remote factory farms to work.