Kristofer Marinus Schipper, 1934, Järnskog (Eda Municipality), Sweden. Schipper is also known as Rik Schipper, and is known in China as Professor Shi Zhouren. Schipper grew up near Edam in The Netherlands. After his retirement he and his wife Dr. Yuan Bingling moved to Fuzhou (Fujian) in China.
Schipper is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He organized and edited the first complete scientific study of the 1500 works contained in the Taoist Canon of the Ming Dynasty.
He is an emeritus professor of Oriental studies at Leiden University, appointed there in 1993. He is also appointed at the Sorbonne, religious studies, in Paris and is head of the École pratique des hautes études. He also teaches at Fuzhou University and Zhangzhou College.
Schipper studied in Taiwan. He was very interested in the ceremonies and rituals that are part of Taoism. Knowledge of the rituals may only be passed on within a family. He was adopted by a befriended family, so he could be trained in Taoism. In 1968 he was initiated as a priest in the Zhengyi School of Taoism.
In 2001 Kristoffer Schipper and his wife Dr. Yuan Bingling founded the first library in China specialised in western art, literature, and culture, in Fuzhou. It is called the "Library of the Western Belvedere" or "Xiguan cangshulou" (Fuzhou University Global Civilization Research Center and Library of the Western Belvedere.)
With his library they intend to make western literature more accessible to Chinese scientists. The collection consists, in 2007, of about 25000 titles on literature, art history, and philosophy in many languages, such as English, French, German, Dutch, and other western languages. In 2004 Schipper was awarded the Friendship Prize of the Chinese government for establishing this library.