Pan Shou was one of the small group of well-educated Mainland Chinese immigrants, who came to Singapore in the early days due to the unique set of push and pull factors of those times. Pan arrived in Singapore in 1929, at the age of 19.

Deeply involved in matters of education in Singapore, he held various important positions and played a major role in the founding of Nanyang University (now known as Nanyang Technological University), as the first secretary general.

Well-versed in both calligraphy and poetry, Pan was a literati scholar-artist who was trained in calligraphy before the age of 10, as was common in educated Chinese families in his time. He dedicated the last 25 years of his life to the xingshu script, and was one...