Cao Yu
After finishing his studies at Nankai secondary school, Cao Yu first matriculated at Nankai University's Department of Political Science but transferred the next year to Tsinghua University, where he would study until graduating in 1934 with a degree in Western Languages and Literature. During his university studies, Cao Yu improved his abilities in both Russian and English. His course of studies required reading the works of such western authors as Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill, and of Russian authors such as Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky, as well as translated works of classic Greek writers, Euripides and Aeschylus. This immersion in western literature would mark Yu's style in all writing genres including the "spoken theater" which had had little tradition in China prior to Yu's influence (as opposed to sung Chinese opera), . During the course of his last year at the university, Cao Yu completed his first work, "Thunderstorm", which would mark a milestone in Chinese theater's history of the 20th century.