One scholar commented that Lin's "particular blend of sophistication and casualness found a wide audience, and he became a major humorous and critical presence", and he made compilations and translations of the Chinese classics into English.

Instead of accepting this charge, Lin immersed himself in the Confucian texts and literary culture which his Christian upbringing and English language education had denied him.

[3] His humor magazine The Analects Fortnightly (Lunyu Banyuekan, 1932–1940, 1945–1949) featured essays by writers such as Hu Shih, Lao She, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren.

[4][5] In 1933, Lu Xun attacked the Analects for being apolitical and dismissed Lin's 'small essays' (小品文; xiǎopǐn wén) as "bric a brac for the bourgeoisie".

In 1933, he met Pearl Buck in Shanghai, who introduced him and his writings to her publisher and future husband, Richard Walsh, head of the John Day Company.

The novels Moment in Peking (1939), A Leaf in the Storm (1940), and The Vermilion Gate (朱門) (1953) described China in turmoil while Chinatown Family (1948) presented the lives of Chinese Americans in New York.

He vehemently criticised Churchill for refusing to extend the right to self-determination to Britain's colonies under the Atlantic Charter and also quipped that 'all you need to do to make an Englishman a gentleman again is to ship him back west of the Suez Canal'.

[11] After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lin traveled in China and wrote favorably of the war effort and Chiang Kai-shek in Vigil of a Nation (1944).

The Ming Kwai ('clear and quick') Chinese typewriter played a pivotal role in the Cold War machine translation research.

However, according to CIA agent, Joseph B. Smith, Lin clashed with founder Tan Lark Sye and the board of trustees on the direction of the new university.

"[13] The faculty rejected Lin's plans to demolish and rebuild the new school building (which though grand, was not "Western" enough), his demands to have sole control over finances, and a budget clearly beyond its means.

[citation needed] Although his major books have remained in print, Lin was a thinker whose place in modern Chinese intellectual history has been overlooked.

The organizer of the conference was Dr. Qian Suoqiao, author of the book, Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010).

Working as a biochemist, she became the Department Head of Pathology at the University of Hong Kong(HKU) and later as a medical researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.