Formerly known as Yuan, Yuan Shui Pai was his later pen name, which was taken from a poem by Mei, a poet in the Song Dynasty, meaning "Red paint is a hundred feet, and the Yangtze River water beats the sky". His other famous pen name is "Mafanto", which is a homonym of "Movado" (meaning "perpetual motion machine") in esperanto and "troubled" in Wu dialect, indicating that he suffered a lot of social problems in China in the Kuomintang-ruled areas.
He is the author of poetry anthology "Ma Fantuo Folk Songs" (2 episodes), "Boiling Years", "Man", "Winter", "Sunflower", "Liberating Folk Songs", "Political Satire", "Forty Poems", "Praise and Curse" and "A Song of Yingying in Spring", and translated poetry anthology "Warsaw, Beijing and Vienna".