Perhaps the only thing more aurally challenging than a roomful of novice violinists screeching their way through Mary Had a Little Lamb is a roomful of novice violinists screeching along on out-of-tune instruments.
“Stop,” Chen Yiming says to her enthusiastic students, ages eight to 47. “Can we please pay attention to our instruments and make sure they are tuned correctly?”
After a short break for adjustments, the cacophony resumes.
Violin fever has hit Donggaocun, a drab rural township about an hour’s drive from Beijing. Hundreds of residents, young and old, are picking up the bow as Donggaocun tries to position itself as the mainland’s string instrument capital.
Once known primarily for its abundant peach harvest, the town has become one of the world’s most prodigious manufacturers of inexpensive cellos, violas, violins and double basses. Last year the town’s nine factories and 150 small workshops produced 250,000 instruments, most of them ending up in the hands of students in the US, Britain and Germany.