In the introduction to his translation of Han-shan's poems, Burton Watson writes, If the reader wishes to know the biography of Han-shan, he must deduce it from the poems themselves. Watson goes further to describe Han-shan as a gentleman farmer, troubled by poverty and family discord, who after extensive wandering and perhaps a career as a minor official became a hermit. In Paul Rozer's translation of poem 302, Han-shan appears to say that after leaving home and traveling he arrived at Tiantai Mountain at age 30, and that he was trained in the Confucian classics: