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I was reading an article about how the "automobile industry is on the rise" thanks given GM's bailout and subsequent IPO. My first thought was, "How about bringing back the US piano manufacturing sector?"

I was looking at the Heller Bass site recently and saw a post in their forum by a woman in China looking to hire piano technicians for her company. Importing piano technicians? Neat!

China produces lots of pianos and this article says they sold around 300k domestically in 2008. As an aside, the latter article also mentions "From Mao to Mozart" which is available on Netflix streaming, if you're looking for something to watch tonight.

But back to China... That last article also says there are 38 million people studying piano in China. I couldn't find an estimate on the total numbers of pianos in China, but I hope there are a lot. The FMM documentary mentioned the Chinese had very little exposure to Western classical music. Does that mean pianos were rarities there for much of their history?

Does anyone have any thoughts or knowledge of whether foreign piano technicians are particularly in demand or might there just be an overall shortage? Are there Chinese guilds? Has Reblitz been translated to Chinese?What's goin' on over there? I'd love to see the symbols used for all the piano nomenclature.

Seems like an ESL teaching piano tuner would stay real busy over there...

I know a few friends who have done some consulting work in China. The level of technical expertise, especially in service and restorations, is pretty low, apparently. This is in part due to lacking educational opportunities.

China is the world's largest piano manufacturer, it could be they make more pianos than everyone else combined. Most of the production is for the domestic market. With that many sales, there MUST be a demand for service people. I am not sure how many western techs would be interested in working at local wages, though.

I was just in Hong Kong, and saw huge billboard ads for pianos - mostly Kawai and Yamaha. There was a giant bus-side ad picturing a Kawai upright, and ads in the subway for Yamaha and Kawai uprights. It was really neat to see. Pianos must be a hot item over there.

One would think the myriad of technical organizations that have a desire to grow their membership would be concentrating where the majority of pianos are being made these days, and it certainly is not this continent.

Think about it; where has all the manufacturing gone to for the most part? This is where they need technical training of all sorts, not just in the piano field.

Jurgen: Ah, yes... local wages. That's no fun!

Tea Girl: It's pretty amazing. I don't know if I've ever seen a piano on a billboard...

Dan: Not only the technical organizations, but the correspondence schools, too. Translate and subtitle! Some Googling revealed that Hailun and Faye Chen, owners of Hailun pianos, are graduates of the Piano Technology School of Beijing. I couldn't find that, but I did find a course listing at the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute.