At only 10.5 square meters, Feng Suncheng’s musical instrument repair store, located at No 80 Zhaozhou Road in Shanghai, is well known in the city and has even been recommended as a must-see in Shanghai by a foreign travel magazine. The shop, that has been open for about 20 years, has over 100 different types of musical instruments stuffed in almost every corner.

The life experience of Feng Shuncheng is quite fascinating.

Due to the need of the musicians of the Paramount, Shanghai’s iconic night club and dance hall, to have their instruments repaired, Feng get a foot in the music industry’s door when he was young. Later when he was an adult, he also accompanied several well-known Chinese music stars like Na Ying and Liu Huan.

After learning to playing instruments abroad for a couple of years, he devoted himself into the production and maintenance of musical instruments. Whether Feng has been playing or repairing his watchword has always been craft.

“At that time there weren’t a lot of opportunities overseas for a Chinese to do musical instruments repair work, so I decided to return to my motherland. In recent years people have paid much more attention and respect to craftsmanship. From my perspective, fixing musical instruments is also craftsmanship”, said Feng, who has been running this business ever since he rented this small shop in 1999.

Feng himself also made several musical instruments on his own, for example making a Hawaii electric guitar from a thrown-away door plank and an erhu-like new musical instrument using a tea pot.

Nowadays there are a lot of visitors to Feng’s small shop everyday. He has become so popular that guests from other provinces have even sent a car to bring him to their homes for piano restoration. The Shanghai Musicians Association has offered a membership certificate to Feng to honour his contribution to popular music in Shanghai since reform and opening-up.

Photo/ Bai Kelin