Eberhard made his first journey to China in 1934. After traveling through regions of China collecting folklore, studying temples and dissecting the Chinese culture. The purpose of the trip was to collect ethnographic objects for the Museum. In Zhejiang, Eberhard traveled in the countryside, studied temples, and collected folktales with the help of Ts'ao Sung-yeh; most of these tales were published in Erzählungsgut aus Südost-China (1966). Then he went to Beijing and found work teaching German and Latin at Peking National University, Peiping Municipal University, and the Medical School at Baoding. Occasionally, his first wife Alide (née Roemer) coauthored with him and helped him with editing and translating into English. In 1934, his first son, Rainer, was born. The next year Eberhard travelled across northern China to Xi'an, the sacred mountain Mount Hua, Taiyuan, and the Yungang Grottoes at Datong. His interviews with Taoist priests on Hua-shan were the basis for the text of a book coauthored with Hedda Hammer Morrison, Hua Shun, the Taoist Sacred Mountain in West China (1974).