[2] In 1921, Xie went to Gansu province in northwestern China to perform investigations with Weng Wenhao and Wang Lie.

A year later he was hired as a professor at Tsinghua University,[2] and in 1948 Xie was elected an academician of the Academia Sinica.

[2] In 1949, the year of the victory of the Communists over the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, Xie stayed in mainland China.

[4] After Mao Zedong launched the ten-year Cultural Revolution in 1966, Red Guards attacked Xie as a counter-revolutionary.

[4] Xie married Wu Jingnong (Chinese: 吴镜侬), a graduate of Beijing Normal University.