Outbreak of piano fever in China

This article is refreshing and encouraging. While the western world has generally lost the interests for classical music and piano playing - the rising China population has grown to love this instrument.

Many parents in USA and other western world rather sign up for soccer or baseball lessons for their kids, our friends in China has grown to love the piano lessons. The piano manufacturing industry in China has grown so much in the past few years, it has taken over many leaders in Western world.

When I was a private piano instructor I know for a fact that many parents would not enforce the piano practice session at home. Yet, they do not mind to drive hours with the kids to attend soccer or baseball camp. It is a shame.

Some parents undoubtedly hope that their children will become the next Lang Lang or Li Yundi: the starry pianists who are the current darlings of the music industry and whose posters cover many a teenager's bedroom wall.

But most are practical, seeing learning the piano as a route to a good high school or university place.

In a piano shop, I meet a man who works as an engineer at a power station. He tells me he hopes learning the piano will make his 10-year-old daughter grow up a well rounded individual.

"The discipline will be good," his wife adds, "It will make her concentrate."

A professor at one of China's music conservatoires puts the current love affair between the piano and China's children even more succinctly:

"Kids who are studying piano don't go wrong."