Vincent, wearing a baseball cap, sweatshirt and jeans, displays a sense of style and self-confidence. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

Songs like "Qing Hua Ci" ("Blue and White Porcelain"), "Fa Ru Xue" ("With Hair Like Snow") and "Lan-ting Xu" ("Orchid Pavilion Preface") are hot material in the contemporary Chinese-speaking pop music world.

The words of these songs are the work of Vincent Fang, a Taiwanese pop-song lyricist who borrows ideas from Tang and Song Dynasty poetry to create a Chinese classical influence. He has written a number of songs for Taiwan's top pop singers including Jay Chou, S.H.E., Jody Jiang and Jolin Tsai. Electric guitars are today replacing traditional Chinese instruments, and sensuous music videos are contrasted against tranquil scenes from ancient times. Vincent's lyrics have brought to light a cultural imagination spanning more than 2000 years' history: from Shi Jing (The Book of Songs) to Chu Ci (Songs of the South).

Vincent's story from blue-collar worker to musical mastermind and filmmaker may seem inspirational, but the reality has been far from simple.

In his office, vehicle license plates and house numbers are piled in a corner. A white cabinet next to a pile of scrap metal is filled with cigarette packs of the now-defunct "New Paradise" brand. A faded plate stands next to a bookcase where Golden Melody Awards are randomly displayed, carrying a shocking announcement: "The theft or sale of firearms is punishable by death."

It is often said that an author's writing style mirrors their own character-the style is the man-but this does not apply to Vincent. Dark skinned with a rugged physique, he usually dresses comfortably with black headscarf, T-shirt, loose jeans and sneakers.

Vincent's mother passed away earlier this year. On a table, amongst obituaries and a pile of documents lies a platinum ring, the work of the daughter of Tung Yang-tzu, a Chinese brush-writing calligrapher. The daughter has used two Chinese characters from her mother's work-Se (form) and Kong (emptiness)-to create a hollowed-out ring as a gift for the sunken-faced Vincent. He strokes the ring gently. When he meets friends, he pauses and tells them: "Don't ask me about my mother-I can't talk about it."