Sun Lei, (also known as Sun Mu Yang), is the Chief Designer at FIYTA and the founder of Independent watch brand MOONYANG.

1. Describe briefly your childhood.

I spend my childhood in Shenyang, a city particularly famous for its heavy industries in the Northeast China. Both my parents worked in a State-owned engine plant that had tens of thousands of workers. My father was a talented mechanical engineer and my mother was a Russian translator. Impoverished though we were in that time, we had little pressure on school study and had a whole bunch of time playing. Of course, we hardly had any ready-made toys，and I began to make my own toys when I was still a little kid, like radio receiver made from ores, hand-made skating board, dragonfly catcher, BBQ grill made from metal cans, kite, birdcage, spinning tops, slingshot, and even mini powder shotguns. At the fourth grade, I took the only table clock in the house apart. Even today I can clearly recall that the clock had all its parts fixed in place by two clamping boards that were joined together by three bolts. Once the bolts were removed, all the parts just sprang up before me. It left me no choice but to put them back up piece by piece by memory. Somehow, a part was in the wrong position, and we had to take it to the watch repair shop to make it correct. This made my first close contact with clocks, though it was a little bit embarrassing.

2. As a child did you have any driving ambition?

As a child, I once had a dream of becoming a swordsman helping the people in need with my Kongfu. Several years later, I was fascinated by aircraft pilots and wished to join them. In the senior middle school, I tried and I failed. I could not pass that demanding physical examination.

3. What is your first significant memory as a child?

I don’t recall any special impression of the childhood, except one thing. In 1979, my father took his first trip abroad and when he came back he brought me a Rubik’s cube which was just invented by the Hungarians. It happened that my father had a business trip to Hungary, and bought one for me. It is a pity that I still can’t figure out how it works even till today.

4. Have you ever had another profession?

I have been working in the watchmaking industry ever since my graduation from the university, and never took any other job.

5. What made you decide to go in the direction you are currently in?

I was one of the earliest industrial design graduates in China. When I graduated, China had just started its shift from planned economy to market economy, from shortage to abundance. At that time, only very few people in China, especially in the north, knew about industrial designing. Therefore, I moved to Shenzhen where it had higher market economy level, and joined FIYTA as its first in-house industrial designer.

6. What’s the worst job you’ve had to do?

I didn’t have any awful experience with the job, except that I felt at a loss in the first several years in FIYTA. Since I was the first industrial designer in the company, and there was no ready-to-use pattern that I can follow, so I had to find out myself what position my job was along the value chain and how my job was linked to other jobs on the value chain. At that time, the Internet was not so easily accessible by ordinary people, and it was also very difficult to access the latest industrial updates. All I could do was to follow my own understanding and perception of watchmaking. Those were really hard years for me.

7. What’s been the hardest moment in your life so far, and how did you overcome it?

I have faced many difficult times in my life, but the details of this I feel is very private. 

Professionally the biggest challenge I ever had was the development of MOONYANG movement. The program required new breakthrough to the existing movement structures, because of the unique and innovative ways of time presentation. Throughout the history of watchmaking, there has been no watch with similar time presentation, which meant there was no reference to take. We worked with the Swiss designer team for five years, and finally made a lot of improvement to the movement and dial structures. The driving system was simplified and the energy consumption was reduced. With some critical innovations in structure, materials and production process, we finally solved a series of tough problems, such as the energy loss in ejecting and taking back the hands, the hands being caught when they are ejected and taken back, problems when several hands are ejected at a same time, the stability problems, and the miniaturization of movement size. Then, we finally came out with this mature product that has stable performance, moderate size, classic design and finest processing technologies.

8. Who has had the strongest influence on you?

It was my parents that had the most profound influence on my life. My father was keen and diligent on his job, and my mother had her special love for culture and arts and was very nice and hospital to friends. They have a decisive influence on my ways of approaching people and doing things.

9. What are you most proud of?

The very thing I was most proud of in my career was the watch we made for Chinese astronauts, and the watches worked well to meet all their needs. The astronauts were wearing watches designed by me, when they conquered the space and took the first space walk in the Chinese history. This will be a milestone in Chinese watchmaking history.

10. What advice would you give to a 20 something someone thinking of taking a similar path as you?

Here is my suggestion to the newcomers in the watchmaking industry: get yourself well prepared for lifetime learning and continuous innovation. This industry is especially interdisciplinary and requires various knowledge and expertise. When we look at the long history of watchmaking, we see many masterpieces over there. This tiny space combines both the inexhaustible creativity of mankind and their infinite imagination. This is also where the magic of watchmaking lies.

11. Name three things on your bucket list.

Speaking of the top three things on my to-do list,  

1 To create my own brand...In principle it has been achieved. The next question is to make it greater.

2. To make a movie

3. To own a building that designed by myself.

12. Where do you think the watch industry is going to be in 10 years’ time.

The world is changing, I believe that many new foreign brands will find their new places the Chinese market, at the same time Chinese watchmaking industry will be more robust and energetic in the next ten years, will be some niche brands that cater to the interest and needs of a particular user group and there will be remarkable improvements in the movement development and manufacturing. Mechanical watches and smart watches will be developed following very different paths.

To learn more about Sun Lei