Dear People, With the current thread on Chinese pianos I would make the following observations. On the TV last week I watched a segment on China. I never heard of this from this perspective before. It concerned building a dam on the Yangtze River. It seems that the river is used as an open sewer to dispose of all wastes to dump into the ocean finally. Because of all the garbage and wastes left on the banks the flooding which happens very regularly kind of flushes everything out. It seems disgusting but it has worked for them for untold years. Now they are going to build a dam across the river which will stop the flooding and generate electricity. Since the flooding and flushing is going to stop when this is completed the river upstream will turn into a permanent toilette bowl. You don't get one thing without giving up another. The fellow who was giving the report said that there were including this project only 3 monumental things the Chinese have done through history. The first was the Great Wall which took a very long time to build, and was obsolete before it was even completed and didn't work anyway. I don't recall the 2nd huge project but it was a failure also. Thirdly was this current dam project. In another words the Chinese have not been very successful in completing any huge task. Yet many revere them. Their Chinese medicine (Acu-puncture, Chinese herbs, Art; etc. are very popular around the world as is their legendary patience which is emulated. How then will this piano making fit in with their past failures. Will it be a huge undertaking to build terrible instruments. Since the idea is to sell these same pianos to their own, will their terribleness turn off the Chinese to the piano with them thinking that all pianos are as poor as theirs? Will this make imported pianos in China much more valuable? Why would we want to import the inferior pianos and turn off our own budding low cost pianos buyers to all pianos? Why can't they use Chinese names for these things rather than names like Brentwood and other American and German sounding names. That would at least be some truth in packaging. Remember the brand "Grand Piano" and how rotten they were? Can Y-C, Samick, Yamaha, Kawai straighten them out before it is too late an no one will by a Chinese piano at any price, much less give it a consideration? Who knows. I am always skeptical of the term "fine imported". So what if it is fine and imported we have fine and domestic here too. We also have available imported trash, who needs more? James Grebe R.P.T. from St. Louis pianoman@inlink.com "Do it because it is right"
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