Connecting the dots
Pan Tzu-tsun, who is in his late 30s, has not received any formal training in music, nor in industrial crafts. An autodidact, he established his own brand, Sine., seven years ago to promote steel tongue drums, also known as hank drums. This enterprise may look like an unaccountably abrupt change of direction in Pan’s life, but it actually bears witness to the truth of Steve Jobs’s remark on “connecting the dots”: all the dots of Pan’s life up to that point were joined up and given a clear meaning.
Right from the beginning of his working life, Pan was unwilling to follow well-trodden career paths. This refusal to conform to conventions can be traced back to his university days. As he says, his academic training in philosophy accounts for his propensity “to challenge, to question, and to reflect.” Compared with most other people, who scramble to climb the social ladder, Pan longs for an unpretentious kind of life that allows him to be himself. However, in his search for a job that would suit his personality and help him make ends meet, he experienced one setback after another.
Always passionate about creative activities, Pan has many talents. At high school, he played drums and formed an indie band with his friends. But playing one kind of instrument alone was not enough to sate his creative appetite, and he diversified into digital music and songwriting. At university, in addition to studying philosophy, he took computer animation courses. His first job after graduation was in 3D animation.
However, he had difficulty settling into a secure but unadventurous professional life. During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, capitalism underwent critical scrutiny across the world. In that context, Pan, who had long been struggling to come to terms with his own way of life, decided to quit his job and throw himself into social movements. Subsequently he turned his back on civilized society, retuning to nature to live a primitive, hippie-inspired life. At the same time he abandoned the digital creative tools he had been adept at using and started to re-explore the long-forgotten joys of manual crafts. But fate would have it that his girlfriend should become pregnant. Their son was born, and once again Pan found himself having to grapple with the harsh economic realities of daily life.
“Back then, I didn’t know that negating and denying one’s past was actually a very dangerous thing to do,” Pan says with a faint smile. He has now put the past into perspective. Sitting in his capacious workroom, he’s surrounded by his projects in progress and other experimental works.
His current work centers on the music he has always loved, relies on craft skills, and draws substantially on his creativity. As a sole trader who manages his own brand, he also finds opportunities to utilize the multimedia tools he is already familiar with. The business thus integrates the skills and specialisms Pan has acquired at various stages of his life. At long last, this is something that suits his inclinations perfectly. It turns out that his past experiences have not been pointless.
Pan Tzu-tsun perfected his product line by experimenting with scrap gas cylinders, successfully forging his personal brand.