One woman's love for her old employer has seen the company strike a chord with customers thanks to a new range of instruments and renewed business vigor. Sun Renbin, Huang Yan and Zhao Hongnan report for Xinhua from Shenyang.

After putting all her savings and bank loans into the purchase of her former employer, a piano manufacturer, Zhang Xiaowen refused to contemplate what would happen if the business failed.

All she thought about was the summer afternoon in 2018, when she walked into the abandoned factory of Baldwin Dongbei Piano Instruments, amid a wilderness of weeds, and felt the tears welling up in her eyes.

"It can't just go like this," she said to herself. "I bet my entire life on Dongbei Piano. Life is short, but don't we live to do something?"

Luckily for the company, Zhang's move seems to have succeeded.

On June 20, 2019, Dongbei Piano Musical Instruments, aka Dongbei Piano, was inaugurated. It produced 3,000 pianos in a 12-month period, despite a six-month suspension of operations as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic last year.

During the first half of this year, the company received orders for more than 300 grand pianos.

"When there are orders, there is hope," said Zhang, who is now the company's chairwoman.

Youthful star

Dongbei Piano, where Zhang's career started 35 years ago, was based in the port city of Yingkou in the northeastern province of Liaoning. In 1986, when Zhang and 39 classmates graduated from a local vocational school, having majored in piano manufacture, they were assigned to the piano factory's 1,000-plus workforce.

"It was the best job you could get in Yingkou at the time," the 54-year-old recalled.

The company, founded in 1952, was once one of China's largest piano producers, selling its products in more than 20 countries and regions.

Trucks were always lined up to transport pianos. Meanwhile, taxis stood outside every payday, while the team leaders reminded the happy employees not to stay out too late having fun because they had to work the next day.

Zhang, ingenious and well-trained, quickly stood out from her colleagues. At age 21, she became one of three workers among 100 employees to be given a raise in recognition of their outstanding performance.

Zhou Xiong, 59, who joined Dongbei Piano in 1983, said: "We were not in the same workshop, but her name was often mentioned. I was not convinced at the time: could a young woman who had just left school be so good?"

Zhang was too busy to hear about Zhou's doubts. The company often called on her to repair pianos for customers, and she never let them down. "I had studied and participated in the whole process of piano production, from design to assembly. I knew what the problems might be," she said.

The trips opened a window to the outside world that fascinated Zhang.

"I was surprised to see a woman driving a (Volkswagen) Santana in Beijing in 1993," she said.

Eventually, she volunteered to move to the sales department, and in 2001, she was dispatched to Shanghai to take charge of the East China market.

"I was greeted by bad news and good news. The bad news was I could not sell a single piano because our instruments were languishing in dealers' warehouses," Zhang said.

When she visited the warehouses and examined the pianos, she discovered the reason: due to the difference in climate, pianos made in the dry north did not adapt well to the humid climate in the south.

"The good news was that I could fix them all," she said.

Zhang traveled from one warehouse to another, repairing pianos. To root out the problems, she proposed improving the manufacturing process and got more rebates for the dealers.

She did not earn a penny for the company, but she lost 65,000 yuan (about $7,850 in 2001) in her first year as a salesperson. By the third year, Zhang was ranked second in the company's sales.

Huge debt, big bet

As Zhang grew from apprentice to model employee, Dongbei Piano underwent profound changes. In 1988, the company wholly acquired the Swedish piano brand Nordiska, paying $750,000, and it sent 25 skilled workers, including Zhou, for training at Nordiska.

"It was rewarding," Zhou said. "My teachers at home told me how, and the Swedish masters showed me why."

In 1998, Dongbei Piano signed a contract to produce grand pianos with Daewoo, a manufacturer in the Republic of Korea, and the Chinese company set up a grand piano plant the following year.

"It was a dream to produce grand pianos," said Guo Kai, a 46-year-old instrument designer who joined Dongbei Piano in 1998 as a university graduate. The road ahead was never a smooth one, however, with changes in market demand and challenges in business management.

In its heyday, the company produced 30,000 uprights and 10,000 grands a year, making it China's third-largest piano manufacturer.

However, a sharp decline in international demand ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis saw the heavily export-oriented company fall on hard times.

As a result of the restructuring of China's State-owned enterprises, Gibson, a guitar maker in the United States, acquired full ownership of Dongbei Piano in December 2006.

The new company, named Baldwin Dongbei Piano Instruments, laid off workers, who struck out on their own after taking a lump sum in compensation.

Unlike those sad colleagues, tuner Zhang Yongqing had been longing to find a new job. "The traditional State-owned enterprise was like a comfort zone. I could imagine what my life would be until retirement－nothing exceptional," the 50-year-old said. He quickly left for Dalian, a coastal city in the province, and worked as a tuner for a musical instrument store.

Guo headed for South China, and then moved to Germany, where he was technology manager at a piano company for 10 years on behalf of his new employer. He has never stopped hammering away at designing the best pianos.

Zhang Xiaowen was the last to leave, having remained as head of the sales department till 2009. She said she left because she did not think her beloved brand was cherished.

"The good products were labeled with their own brand and the poor-quality products labeled as Nordiska. I couldn't accept that," she said.

She went into the business of purchasing and renovating secondhand instruments, then opened her own piano factory. Meanwhile, Baldwin Dongbei Piano failed to save the company. "Salaries halved, people left," Guo recalled.

The company ceased production in 2011, and later filed for bankruptcy. The Dongbei Piano brand was registered by other manufacturers.

Having run her own business, Zhang Xiaowen understood brand value, and she succeeded in buying back the old Dongbei Piano brand name.

Her next move came in November 2018, when Baldwin Dongbei Piano was put up for sale with the approval of the Yingkou government.

Zhang Xiaowen eventually won the public bidding round. She paid nearly 120 million yuan ($18.7 million), with 50 million yuan in bank loans, more than five times the appraised value.

"What she did was amazing," Guo said. "It will take years of losses before the company makes a profit."

However, Zhang Xiaowen was confident that the old customers would come back and Dongbei Piano would win back its international market share.

Being good at sewing and tailoring, Zhang Xiaowen redesigned the Dongbei Piano coveralls, working from memory. "They are my favorite clothes," she said.

Aiming high

Zhang Xiaowen was not alone in trying to revive the glory of Dongbei Piano. Designer Guo joined in, as did tuner Zhang Yongqing and sound source engineer Zhou.

The four have been colleagues for more than 30 years. They used to be pacesetters in their posts and often took to the stage together to receive awards.

"In the past, we were like-minded colleagues. Now, we are like-minded partners," Zhang Xiaowen said.

On Aug 25, 2019, the first upright piano－numbered zero－rolled off the production line. It was not sold, but was kept for a planned piano museum at the company.

Guo, general manager and chief designer at Dongbei Piano, was helping the company woo the market with quality products and creative designs in both finish and function.

"Our pianos are made from the best materials from all over the world," he said. "We are aiming to produce the best pianos in China."

Zhou was one of the few people who supported Zhang Xiaowen's purchase plan from the start.

"I had deep feelings for the old Dongbei Piano and wept at its breakup," the 59-year-old production manager said. "Fame and fortune are no longer important. There is only one thing left in my life: to rebuild Dongbei Piano and make even better instruments."

Zhang Yongqing is chief tuner and manager in charge of marketing.

"The pianos we make today are the best Dongbei Piano has ever made," he said. "But it will take time to restore our brand name because we had been out of the market for more than 10 years."

To resurrect the Nordiska name and facilitate its return to the market, Dongbei Piano has been participating in top international industry exhibitions since 2019.

In May, Zhang Xiaowen had a grand piano delivered to Boston in the US for a potential customer. The sample was deemed satisfactory and brought an order for 100 pianos.

"We'll catch up as long as we own the key technology and have skilled workers," she said.

Piano manufacturing has undergone centuries of development in the West. The mature industry values the experience and skills of its workers, which explains why Zhang Xiaowen and her partners are confident about Dongbei Piano's future.

The industry has been growing in China, where some 400,000 pianos were produced last year, according to data from the China Musical Instrument Association. "I'm not worried about orders, but about the rising prices of raw materials and the shortage of skilled workers," Zhang Xiaowen said.

Although the prices of wood, iron, and copper have risen by 10 to 30 percent this year, the four-strong board refuses to use cheaper alternatives.

As a grand piano consists of nearly 20,000 parts, many of which are made by hand, Zhang has decided to establish a vocational school and train workers for the company.

Dongbei Piano occupies 260,000 square meters, equivalent to about 36 soccer pitches, which seems large enough to house her aims and dreams. "But first things first; we must survive," she said.

She has obtained a copy of the Dongbei Piano archives from 1952, and plans to keep recording. "People in the future might be interested in our story; that we did something to make a good piano," she said.

Xinhua correspondent Bai Xu contributed to this story.