League of Left-Wing Writers
In 1933 Yang moved to Shanghai, where she joined the League of Left-Wing Writers and befriended American journalist Agnes Smedley. Later that year she returned to Yenching University at the invitation of Edgar Snow, who translated one of Yang's novels into English. In 1935 Yang Gang translated Jane Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice" into Chinese, which was published by the Commercial Press. In 1936, Yang and her husband worked together for the "Popular Knowledge" magazine () run by the historian Gu Jiegang.