Hsu was born on October 28, 1909, in
Zhuanghe,
Liaoning,
China. He entered
Tianjin Nankai High School in 1923, graduated from the Department of Sociology at the
University of Shanghai in 1933, entered the Graduate School of
Fu Jen Catholic University in the same year, and later engaged in social work at
Peking Union Medical College Hospital. He obtained the
Boxer Indemnity Scholarship (United Kingdom) in 1937 and went to London to study anthropology at the
London School of Economics, where he studied under
Bronisław Malinowski. He obtained a doctorate in 1941 and was invited by
Fei Xiaotong to return to China. In 1943, he was invited by
Ralph Linton to visit the United States and he has since stayed in the country as a teacher. He served as a lecturer at
Columbia University from 1944 to 1945. Acting Assistant Professor at
Cornell University from 1945 to 1947. In 1947, he was hired as a formal assistant professor at
Northwestern University. He was promoted to professor ten years later and served as the head of the anthropology department from 1957 to 1976 for two decades. In 1964, he went to Japan to serve as a visiting professor at
Kyoto University and conducted a field survey. ==Contributions==