[2][3] In 1919, Yang and 31 other Peking University (Beida) students participated in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1919.
They were arrested by the police for demonstrating outside the home of Cao Rulin, minister of communication and the chief spokesman for Japanese colonial interest in the Chinese government; Yang and the other students were jailed for three days.
[4] Yang was considered a "hot-headed radical" in the Beida literature department and stirred the ire of his professors by sharply critiquing Chinese culture.
[8] Outside of his writing, Yang was successful as an academic and became the chairman of the Chinese department after the reorganization of Beijing University.
[10] In 1946, Shen, Yang, and Feng Zhi founded a weekly literary supplement to Ta Kung Pao in Tianjin.