Published in 1993, this book recounts Bill Porter's travels through the Zhongnan mountains in search of China's last remaining hermits.

In the late 1980s, China had been through decades of political turmoil and rapid social change.

Most Western observers believed the Chinese Communist Party had successfully destroyed so-called 'feudal superstition', and that the country's long tradition of religious eremitism had disappeared.

Bill Porter, known by the pen name Red Pine, is a renowned translator of Classical Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts.

Intrigued by the idea that some hermits may still remain in China's remote regions, Porter traveled to the Zhongnan mountains near the ancient capital of Xi'an.

In this book, the author describes his encounters with Buddhist and Daoist hermits who have endured for decades as the world changed around them.