Okazaki in a 1934 lecture entitled “Lao She and Shen Congwen” said that “A national literature needs a characteristic spirit. When Shen Congwen visited Japan in 1982 as a member of a delegation commemorating the tenth anniversary of the reestablishment of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations, he brought with him a copy of Researches into Ancient Chinese Costume, which he had edited. Most research on Shen Congwen in recent years has analyzed works from his Beijing period, or investigated his connection with Lu Xun and other social relationships. Hamada Maya analyzes the images of young women students in her article, “An Unsolvable Riddle: The Image of Women Students in Shen Congwen’s ‘Xiaoxiao.’” She argues that the value of the story lies in the author’s ability to categorize and objectively view the objects of his affection, while adopting the country person’s view of such women students.