Xu Dishan


Xu Dishan was a Chinese author, translator and folklorist. He was best known for his novels that focus on the people of the southern provinces of China and Southeast Asia. He was also the first Chinese professor who taught Sanskrit at a Chinese university.

Life

Early life

Xu was born in Tainan, Taiwan. His father, Xu Nangying was a Taiwanese jinshi who assisted Liu Yongfu to establish the Republic of Formosa in Tainan. After the Japanese takeover in 1895 his family escaped to Shantou via the harbour of Anping.
Following the fall of the Republic of Formosa Xu Nangying resided with his relatives and started teaching in Thailand and Singapore. After returning from Southeast Asia, Xu Nangying obtained his family registration in Fujian and settled down in Guangzhou where Xu lived and studied.
During his stay in Guangzhou, Xu learned Cantonese, Cantonese opera, Cantonese folk songs and pipa. He spoke both Taiwanese Hokkien and Teowchew dialect as his mother tongues. Although he studied at a modern school in Guangzhou, he was deeply influenced by traditional Chinese studies.
After the 1911 Revolution, Xu Nangying got a position in administration in southern Fujian. Xu Dishan accompanied his father and taught in primary and secondary schools in Zhangzhou. Later he also worked as a teacher in a Chinese-language school in Yangon, Myanmar.
In 1917, Xu went to Yenching University for his undergraduate studies. After graduation, he worked as Zhou Zuoren's teaching assistant and studied theology at Yenching. Xu was considered one of the active participants and pioneers of the May Fourth Movement. In January 1921, Xu and scholars such as Mao Dun, Ye Shengtao and Zheng Zhenduo established a literature society and a monthly literature journal. He was deeply interested in Indian literature, and translated Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali into Chinese.

Academic career

In 1922, he went to Columbia University to study comparative religion and history of religion, and obtained a Master of Arts degree two years later. Later he read historiography of religion, Indology, Sanskrit and Buddhism at Oxford University, where he also picked up French, German, Greek and Latin. In 1926, he graduated with a Bachelor of Letters degree.
He was appointed as professor at Yenching in 1927, and taught at Peking University and Tsinghua University. With the recommendation of Hu Shih, he was appointed as the head of the Department of Chinese of the University of Hong Kong in 1935. During his tenure, he conducted reforms on the course structure and curriculum, which consisted of Chinese literature, history and philosophy. He was also active in the cultural scene in Hong Kong, and formed several literature societies and associations.

Later years

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Xu supported the war against Japan. He was one of the founding members of the National Resistance Association of Literary and Art Workers. Xu wrote several patriotic novels which were well-received by contemporary critics. Xu died of a heart attack on 4 August 1941.