 She returned home and helped her parents manage a hotel and taught in two mountain schools before accepting a position to be director of music at a Methodist school for girls in Huzhou (now Wuxing, Zhejiang), China.She was not a churchgoer and did not consider herself religious, however this time abroad gave way for a pivotal moment in Smith's awareness of the Southern double standard.She studied Chinese philosophy during her time overseas and by living in China was exposed to the similarities between the suppression of the Chinese and African Americans in the States.