[2] He translated many works from English into Chinese, including Gone with the Wind, The Moneychangers, O Crime do Padre Amaro, and The Autobiography of Mao Tse-tung as Told to Edgar Snow, as well as short stories by Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Samuel Beckett.
[2][3] In 1979, when Zhai was temporarily unable to teach following dental surgery, he was assigned to write a university English textbook.
In 1991, College English won the Special Prize of the National University Textbooks Award.
[2][4] He also assisted Lu Gusun [zh] with editing Great English-Chinese Dictionary (英汉大词典).
[2][3] Zhai served as Vice President of Shanghai Translators' Association and was awarded a special pension for distinguished experts by the State Council of the People's Republic of China.