Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum An article on how Chinese pianos have a ways to go

Yes, I believe at least one Boston model is produced in Indonesia. I've mentioned before that my wife grew up in Jakarta. They are quite proud of their piano factories (and should be).

I recall an article linked here some time ago about pianos in China (Steinway sales in China, or an offer from a Chinese company to purchase Steinway). People were all quoted essentially as idealizing Germany as the place Steinways come from. And as OE1FEU points out, for them it's true.

Philip, I can’t comment on how locals in Shanghai pronounced Grotrian. I had my own issues with the limited Mandarin that people would understand from time to time!

Regarding Boston and Essex and Pearl River, the great river of information called Wikipedia says

Pearl River also manufactures all models for Steinway & Sons' "Essex" brand piano line, including grand pianos and uprights, in their factory in Guangzhou. On May 1, 2005, Steinway & Sons and Pearl River Piano Group jointly announced an agreement. The companies began developing several new Essex models, which Steinway & Sons designed for affiliate company Boston Piano Co., Inc. The piano line reached the marketplace early in 2006. It was Steinway's first venture in China, and Pearl River's first OEM relationship with a Western piano maker.

If there’s more to it than that, and there may be, the preceding paragraph on Wikpedia requires some editing.

So, for example, I also (just) found at this site

https://www.chuppspianos.com/boston-pianos/

that Kawai designed Boston Pianos for Steinway and manufacturers them in Japan and Indonesia. As other here have already said ...

Yes it sounds like Wikipedia needs a great deal of editing.

Would you mind explaining this a little more?

Although the locals speak a dialect of Wu Chinese called Shanghainese, I've never had problems speaking Mandarin among the educated class. It's a a bit more challenging when communicating with working people, but even they understand more or less, at least those in service industries (taxi drivers, restaurants, etc). Until five years ago when the air pollution got too bad, my wife and I had a place in the Jing'an district of Shanghai.

I also never had an issue speaking Mandarin with the locals.

I've never had any trouble either, but only because I've never been there.

That may change though. Several of the largest software engineering conferences are being held in China this upcoming year, and I'll be submitting at least two papers. Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll be accepted, but then the silver lining will be that I still have no trouble speaking to the locals.

Some of the Essex pianos may also be produced by Kingsburg in Yantai. I saw prototypes there when I visited. They didn't intend for me to see them but I found them inadvertently when looking for something else. They swore me to secrecy but later the news became public via official channels.

It doesn't actually say anything about Boston pianos, only Essex models.

That's exactly why I asked Mark to clarify his statement. It looked dangerously close to nonsense to me. My wife is Chinese and she is from Jiangsu province, and yet she can communicate perfectly well in Shanghai. So if they don't understand Mandarin in Shanghai, how on Earth did she accomplish that? I think it shows a lack of understanding of how central Mandarin Chinese is in the schooling system. It's practically impossible not to understand (and speak) Mandarin if you've been to school. A lot of people travel to a place and make all sorts of erroneous conclusions about it.

True for Shanghai, but it is slightly less true in some areas of China... The locals in Guangdong province are far less fluent in Mandarin than they are in Shanghai, especially outside of the larger cities like Guangzhou. But yes, perhaps at one time long ago, it was harder to communicate in Mandarin, but it's been a very long time.

BTW, my father who is in his 80's is from Shanghai and speaks Shanghainese, and his early education was before 1949 under a different government which was less stringent on the use of Mandarin nationally, yet he has still always been fluent in Mandarin.

The issue is that while Mandarin is used in the school system, the locals speak Shanghainese to each other. As you can imagine, if you are a worker that day-to-day only come in contact with other people who speak Shanghainese, your Mandarin from your school days will deteriorate. That's why the educated classes and people in service industries speak Mandarin a lot better than the rest.

When I was in Dujiangyan, for 4 years, 2006-2010 some of the locals struggled to understand Mandarin. My wife had excellent fluent Mandarin but sometimes a taxi driver or someone of the sort simply could not understand her.

Correct.

I meant to say that this is Correct for almost every Province in China.

Yes, Guangdong province is an obvious exception given it is a predominantly Cantonese province. But in the majority of China, there is still plenty of Mandarin ability still present. Yes, there are plenty of people who have let their mandarin slip and may not speak it very well at all, but they can still grasp what you are saying to them. Let's not forget that so much television and movies and music is in Mandarin. You would have to be hiding under a rock to not come into any contact with Mandarin - in cities, at least. The gap between active Mandarin vs passive Mandarin can vary quite a bit, of course. It can make for difficult conversations. Among educated people, Mandarin is not a problem. Rural areas are a different story given their isolation from mass media and lower education levels.

When I take my 4 year old daughter to the park, we try to figure out who are Mandarin speakers by reciting silly poems and seeing who laughs. (like: 大　頭　大　頭，下　 雨　不 　愁，你　有　雨　傘， 我 　有　大 　頭)

The Mandarin speakers giggle. The Cantonese people don't.

Agree. Can't say how many times I've gotten in a cab in Shanghai (and other cities outside of Beijing) and struggled to understand the driver. It's sometimes harder to understand a Chinese person speaking Mandarin with a strong non-Mandarin accent than it is to understand a non-native Chinese speaker. The tones sometimes go in the wrong places and depending on the native dialect of the speaker, sometimes there are odd sounds inserted... my favorite is growling. I don't know how growling can be considered Mandarin.


Well, secondary school education is compulsory, but in every country you have good students, bad students, and worst students. Also, outside of the cities, most of the teachers in the rural schools themselves use Mandarin only as a 2nd language.


It never ceases to amaze me what young children find funny.

True! Although I think it's partly just the sight of a big Caucasian guy playing in a park with a half Chinese girl and reciting ridiculous Chinese poems that amuses them!

My wife grew up in Jakarta, and her mom was Indonesian. I've had similar experiences with Indonesian people who are always surprised that a "bule" can speak a little of their language, and loves to eat the food!