He received his education in China, the United States, Britain, and India; while in school, he studied diverse topics in religion, philosophy, and literature.
Upon his return to China, he was an active member of the May Fourth Movement, and published literary journals with his academic peers.
Xu Dishan was a strong proponent of the Latinization Movement and believed that writing Chinese with a phonetic alphabet would greatly increase literacy.
[5] He graduated in 1920 with his bachelor's degree in literature and enrolled in the seminary at Yenching University to continue his study of comparative religion.
[9] Some of his earliest writings follow convention May Fourth Era story lines, but are not set in China.
[13] His fascination with Theravada Buddhism influences his work, and many of his stories draw inspiration from Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian myths.
[14][15][16] Many May Fourth Era writers write about myths individually, but Xu Dishan incorporates mythic elements into his stories.
[17] Xu Dishan's fiction tends to be romantic and involve sophisticated plot lines which deal with human nature and how to live a good life.
[1][21] Xu Dishan, Qu Qiubai, and Zheng Zhenduo edited Xin shihue xunkan (New Society Thrice Monthly), a journal that was in publication from November 1919 to May 1920.
[5] Among other duties, the Literary Research Association was responsible for editing Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly), the magazine in which Xu Dishan published his first short stories.
He gathered works written in English about the Opium Wars, and published Da zhong ji: Yapian zhanzheng qian Zhong Ying jiaoshe shiliao (Meeting Halfway: Historical Materials on Negotiations between China and England before the Opium War) in 1931, and in 1933 published a collection of sacred Buddhist texts: Fozang zimu yinde (Combined Indices to the Authors and Titles in Four Collections of Buddhistic Literature).
For Xu Dishan, an important part of the legacy of the May Fourth Movement was the implementation of phonetic Chinese.
[21] He believed that the Chinese script needed to be reformed and that China should use the Western Roman alphabet to help spell out words phonetically, instead of using characters.
[3] In this way, he departed from the mainstream belief held by many May Fourth intellectuals; that is, that the Chinese language should adopt baihua (plain speech).