His first occupation was in the Red Guard, and he later became a construction worker. He formed the writer's/activist group The Misty Poets, who published a poetry magazine for 10 years, the magazine was banned by the government. He was exiled after the violence of Tiananmen Square in 1989, spending time in Europe and the United States. Currently, he is a professor at a Hong Kong university and a serious contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is most noted for, The August Sleepwalker, Old Snow, Forms of Distance, Landscape Over Zero, Unlock, The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems, Green Lamp, Blue House, Midnight's Gate, The Gate Opens, Waves.