[5] Jonathan Hutt wrote in Monstre Sacré: The Decadent World of Sinmay Zau that "For many, Shao was not simply inspired by the Occident but rather was of it" and that his lack of awareness of "the Chinese literary scene" distinguished him from his colleagues.

His grandfather Shao Youlian [zh] was a high-ranking official who served as governor of Taiwan and as a diplomat to Russia.

The titles of works Fire and Flesh (火與肉 Huǒ yǔ ròu) and Flower-like Evil (花一般的罪惡 Huā yībān de zuì'è) were respectively inspired by a Swinburne poem and Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire.

[6] Twenty-five Poems (詩二十五首 Shīèr shíwǔ shǒu), Shao's collection of poetry that was published in 1936, did not garner significant attention.

[5] When Hahn wrote articles for The New Yorker,[8] she referred to Shao as "Pan Heh-ven,"[5] forming the basis of the 1942 book Mr.

[6] According to an article published in Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, during World War II, Shao had a habit of drinking alcohol and gambling and therefore racked up a lot of expenses; Hahn covered the costs by selling her books.

[6] Hahn later wrote about Shao in her memoir, China to Me: A Partial Autobiography, using his actual name, spelled as "Sinmay Zau".

[1] Jicheng Sun and Hal Swindall, authors of "A Chinese Swinburne: Shao Xunmei's Life and Art," wrote circa 2015 that few people were aware of him "except for a handful of scholars of modern Chinese literature"; they stated that there were not many scholarly articles about Shao and that reference books published in China "give him a few lines as a minor poet with decadent tendencies".