A Port Townsend man went searching for hermits. Now he's a celebrity in China

By nearly all accounts, Bill Porter's life has been a wild ride.

A new documentary by Port Townsend-based filmmaker Ward Serrill, documents that life — from a childhood defined by wealth to a lonely search for hermits in the mountains of Central China.

Titled "Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation," the movie traverses the many journeys in the translator and cultural historian's life.

Porter, who lives in Port Townsend, is known for his poetry translations in the United States, but he's a celebrity in China. He recently received an award from the Chinese government for the cultural significance of his books.

"This guy that walks along the beach every day in Port Townsend is one of the most significant figures in contemporary China," said Serrill. "As a filmmaker, that just fascinates me."

Porter, also known as "Red Pine," was born into privilege in the U.S.

The son of a bank robber turned influential hotel magnate, Porter went to an elite boarding school and later went AWOL from the army.

But that was all just a precursor to what came next. He learned to meditate, moved to a monastery in Taiwan, and worked for 20 years on translating Zen Buddhist poems from Mandarin to English.

He then took to the mountains of Central China, where he looked for hermits who were believed to no longer exist.

"I went to try and find hermits because I had been translating the poetry of these hermits," Porter said. "I just wondered if people like that really existed. Everybody I talked to said 'no.'"

Porter found them.

His book documenting that journey, "Road to Heaven," became a huge success, selling over two million copies, and even appeared on a popular Chinese sitcom akin to "Sex and the City."

Porter is also one of the foremost Chinese translators who's made numerous texts and sutras accessible for English-speaking audiences

In some ways, crafting a movie about Porter's life was easy for Ward Serill, the director of "Dancing with the Dead."

Serrill wove together three different themes in the movie: the poetry, the translation, and the search for the hermits.

In other ways, the film also presented challenges for Serrill, because "translation is a process that's happening inside Bill's brain."

"You're making a film about something you can't really see," he said.

Serrill previously made the documentaries "Heart of the Game" about Roosevelt High School's basketball team and "The Bowmakers" about the craft of bow making for string instruments — decidedly visual stories.

To bring Porter's story to life, Serrill said he employed animations and song to "take people into the feeling that a Zen poem leaves one with when reading it."

"Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation" premiers in Seattle on April 21 at 2 p.m. at the SIFF Egyptian Theater.

Listen to Soundside’s full conversation with Bill Porter and Ward Serrill by clicking the play icon at the top of this story.