Since the 1920s, his calligraphy and seal cutting have become world-famous. Because of dissatisfaction with the current politics, he pretended to be crazy and avoided the world, and he was called a freak.
He once used the word "iron" as his stage name because he liked to deal with printing. Together with Wu Changshuo (Kutie), Wang Bingtie and Qian Shoutie, it is called "Four Storeys in the South of the Yangtze River". He chose the word "blunt iron", which means modesty.
When he was young, he worshipped Sun Yat-sen, the "father of the country", became a faithful believer in the Three People's Principles and joined the Kuomintang. After Chiang Kai-shek's coup, his trust in the Kuomintang had a sense of crisis, and then he turned from disappointment to despair, so he publicly announced that he would "part ways" with the Kuomintang. He changed his name to "Dung Weng" and named his residence "Toilet Building" to show that he would rise up against the filthy and decadent world.
In his later years, there was a poem "Sixty Checks", which said: "When you are in business, you should be thirty years old and take your surname as shit. I dare not be amazing, let's talk about it. " Deng Sanmu was aloof and uninhibited all his life, and there are many anecdotes about him in the literary world. Mr. Zheng's "Master of Market Recruitment Tang Tuo" said: "There are two famous people in its fashion, and the store never asks for advice. The word' Dun Weng' is too unpleasant to listen to. The only hope of opening a store is to make money. This surname conflicts with making money. " In the old society, literati lived a poor life, and writing market signs (shop signs) and getting a fountain pen fee were an important source for calligraphers to supplement their families. On one occasion, a wealthy businessman begged him to write, and he wanted to write without the word "dung". After hearing this, he immediately slammed the table and cursed. 1936 recorded in the annual report that a "Central Committee member" of the Kuomintang praised calligraphy at that time, but it was only "sorry for the name, it is easier to ask". Deng Sanmu replied angrily, Do you hate my name? Celebrities are everywhere. They took them from me? I would rather starve to death than change my name. "My heart is full of bandits, but I can't turn around." It means "getting rid of dung" and "cleaning filth", and it also contains the idea of "treating money and power like dirt"
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he hoped for world peace and did more good for the society, but it always backfired. He felt that he was incompetent, so he borrowed the metaphor of "pine" in The World of Zhuangzi and renamed it "pine" to laugh at himself.
After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), during the period of 1950~ 1955, Deng Sanmu devoted almost all his energy to the Rhine work in Shanghai. At that time, he was the people's representative of the new urban area in Shanghai and the director of the neighborhood committee in Lane where Deng Sanmu was located. He also takes Ryan's trivial work seriously like a professional, and even runs newspapers, registers books, organizes literacy classes and patrols in person. During this period, he also participated in the land reform task force organized by Shanghai Federation of Literary and Art Circles and went to Shaoxing Daoxu to participate in the land reform work.
In his later years, Deng Sanmu moved to Beijing, but misfortune befell him-he had to remove his left lower limb because of a blocked blood vessel. However, instead of being pessimistic and depressed, he signed his name "One Foot" optimistically and wrote a poem: "Don't worry, you saved my life, which means you left my life." I have to stay, and I have to build equipment for socialism. "Although there is only one foot, it is enough!