Mr. Bill Porter, who publishes under the name Red Pine, is one of the foremost translators of Chinese poetry. Drafted in 1964 he enlisted voluntarily and did a three-year tour with the Army in Germany. Next Porter studied anthropology at the University of California in Santa Barbara and then at Columbia University, where he dropped out halfway pursuing his PhD in 1972 in order to spend four years at Fo Kwang Shan Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. His interest in Buddhism had developed while at Columbia, where he would sit with a Hua-Yen monk by the name of Shou-Yeh that had a temple in New York. Porter eventually found himself studying philosophy as a graduate student at the College of Chinese Culture. While there he also took classes in Chinese art and on Taoism, China’s indigenous religion. He lived for many years both in Taiwan and Hong Kong and, beginning in 1989, traveled throughout China as a journalist. In 1993, after some twenty-two years living and traveling throughout East Asia, Porter returned to the United States. In 2012, the Guggenheim Foundation sponsored his pilgrimage to visit the homes, graves and places of exile of over 30 of China's greatest poets. He has given classes on both Buddhism and Taoism at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and currently resides in Port Townsend, Washington.