by Xinhua author Zhang Yunlong
ZHENGZHOU, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) — Wang Jinwu picks up a violin and factors to the patterns operating throughout its again. He faucets the instrument, listens to its sound, after which walks guests by way of his workshop.
Wang, 54, runs a violin-making firm in Xiaowangzhuang Village in Queshan County, Henan Province in central China.
Around him, employees proceed their duties in small, exact actions.
Liu Ziming, 30, is bending skinny items of wooden into the curved sides of a violin, becoming a member of them to kind the physique earlier than attaching the highest and again plates. Nearby, Xiong Jinduo, a mom of two in her late 30s, applies glue to skinny wood purfling and presses it into grooves alongside an instrument’s edge.
Violin making, a craft steeped in centuries of European custom, has discovered an surprising house right here in Queshan, a rural Chinese county with no historical past of creating musical devices.
Once a poverty-stricken county, Queshan has developed a full violin manufacturing chain, from timber remedy and part carving to portray and ending. More than 2,600 native individuals now work within the trade, producing about 400,000 violins a yr, in line with native trade figures. About 80 p.c of the violins produced in Queshan are exported, whereas a lot of the timber used for making them is imported, in line with Jiang Baolin, secretary-general of the Queshan Handmade Violin Makers Association.
The story of how the trade took root right here begins not with timber or a port, however with individuals.
Since the Nineteen Eighties, villagers from Queshan started leaving for Beijing to be taught violin making. Some finally constructed their very own workshops and companies there. Then, from across the mid-2010s, the move reversed, with many Queshan-born violin makers in Beijing returning house, inspired by native incentives to develop the trade. They introduced with them abilities, prospects and connections constructed over a long time.
Wang was one in all them.
He entered the commerce nearly by probability. With little education on the time, his preliminary objective was merely to work arduous sufficient to earn a dwelling.
Wang left Henan for Beijing at 16 or 17 and apprenticed at a violin manufacturing unit. After six or seven years in factories, he started working independently within the mid-Nineties. His first workshop made solely 4 or 5 violins a month. Over time, he constructed a enterprise and developed abroad prospects.
One U.S. wholesaler has labored with him for practically twenty years. The buyer now buys greater than 2,000 devices a yr, roughly two-thirds of Wang’s annual output.
Wang moved his manufacturing unit from Beijing to Tianjin in 2017, then introduced it again to Queshan in 2023. “I felt more settled once I came back home,” he stated.
By then, he had already constructed an abroad buyer base, and commerce festivals had turn into an necessary technique to discover new patrons. His firm has taken half in musical-instrument exhibitions in China, the United States, Germany, Japan and Italy.
About 90 p.c of his gross sales now go to the United States, he stated, with smaller volumes shipped to nations together with Italy, the Czech Republic and Finland.
A violin takes a few month and a half to finish, Wang stated. The course of is split into six broad levels and plenty of smaller duties. Varnishing alone could contain greater than 20 rounds of utility, drying and sanding.
Much of the work depends upon judgment that’s tough to scale back to a system. Workers be taught one stage at a time, typically taking two or three months to turn into proficient, whereas mastery takes years.
Wang describes every violin as a murals fairly than a commodity.
The progress of native suppliers and supporting companies has additionally formed how the trade operates in Queshan.
Rather than relying totally on giant centralized factories, manufacturing is split amongst workshops and households. Some employees specialise in a single stage and are paid by the piece. Others can take elements house and organize their very own hours.
For Xiong, who additionally farms, that flexibility issues. She could make violin elements whereas staying near her household. Liu, who has labored within the commerce for practically a decade, likewise values working near house.
The mannequin has helped flip a craft as soon as discovered in distant factories right into a supply of rural employment.
But it additionally exposes a number of the trade’s limits.
Wang stated he recruited greater than 10 younger individuals after returning in 2023, however just a few stayed. Violin making requires lengthy durations of repetitive, targeted work, and a few younger employees want jobs that permit them transfer round.
In his view, the talents themselves should not simple to standardize. Experienced makers rely not solely on measurements but additionally on a watch and a really feel honed by way of years of apply.
Maker Xiong Kaifeng returned to Queshan after years of creating violins in Beijing and now focuses on performance-grade handmade devices. He makes solely round 20 violins and 10 cellos a yr, together with fewer violas.
For makers like him, the main focus is on enhancing high quality and constructing recognition for Queshan’s handmade devices.
Queshan is now planning an industrial park and services for coaching, analysis and instrument appraisal. Local authorities additionally need makers to develop their very own manufacturers and transfer past contract manufacturing.
Wang is pursuing the same route in his personal firm. He needs to make use of better-selected timber, refine plate thickness and produce extra devices with persistently excessive sound high quality. With what he describes as a weaker market, he’s now making about 2,000 to three,000 devices a yr, in contrast with greater than 4,000 at one level.
One instrument Wang stays significantly pleased with is a cello he made that gained first prize on the First National Violin Education Equipment Exhibition in 2019. It was later offered at public sale to a instructor for 80,000 yuan (about 11,838 U.S. {dollars}).
Returning house has not meant turning inward.
In September 2025, Wang traveled to Cremona, Italy, house to famed violin maker Antonio Stradivari, to attend the Cremona Musica International Exhibitions and Festival, a global commerce present for musical devices. During the journey, he visited native violin workshops to watch makers and research their methods. He discovered that the violin-making course of was slower at each stage than in his personal manufacturing unit, with increased requirements for timber choice.
“Italian violin making has a much longer history,” he stated, “and there is still much for us to learn.”
That stands out as the clearest image of Queshan’s violin trade: a craft discovered elsewhere, introduced house and tailored to a rural financial system, whereas its makers proceed to look outward for patrons, data and new methods to enhance.