after desiring to have a piano, a real piano, in my house, to play, for quite some time, i decided to stop thinking about what it would be like to have one and see if it was actually possible to get one. so i went to some music stores. new pianos in china cost 16,000 RMB (1) at the least, and i saw ones priced as high as 60,000 RMB. (2) i saw them. i did not think about them. i played a few though, just to see. strangely, i liked the feel of the cheap ones better than the more expensive ones. i'm not sure what that means. but the point was, i was not willing to pay any of those amounts of money for a piano.
so i tried to figure out if it was possible to get a used piano in china. every piano in a store seemed to be a new one. the only way i knew of to get something secondhand is through taobao. taobao is like the chinese version of amazon. except maybe more so. you can get literally anything on there. some foreigners buy their cheese off of taobao. i bought some sweaters once. and medicine that i didn't feel like trying to find in a pharmacy. taobao requires the help of a chinese friend though, sometimes to properly search for something, if i don't know how to say it or type it in chinese. sometimes to communicate with the seller to make sure i'm getting what i actually mean to be getting. and then to actually order it, since adding the feature to my chinese bank card that allows me to use it to buy things online in china requires filling out paperwork in chinese and registering online in chinese, plus it would be dangerous (3) for me to have unlimited access to buying things on taobao on my own. all of that means, i have to have a chinese friend help me buy things on taobao. but i can search, to a certain extent, on my own.
so i tried searching for secondhand pianos (in chinese). they exist! they even had some for around 2000 RMB (4) (that was about the lowest price i saw). that seemed more like my price range. but the thing with buying something on taobao is that once you get it, it's pretty much yours. it is possible to return things, but you have to pay for the shipping and go through the trouble of mailing it and all that. how would i ship back a piano if it came and it didn't like it? i would have to just keep it. i didn't like the idea of buying a piano that i hadn't even tried playing. what if it annoyed me when i played it? or something major in it was broken? it would be sad to spend that money and be annoyed by the piano instead of being able to really enjoy it. but the options at this point were 2-3000 RMB for a piano i'd just have to buy sight unseen, or 16000 RMB for a new piano.
but then, i mentioned this dilemma to a chinese friend, and she happened to know someone whose husband works in a music store. she asked, and they would be able to offer me one of the practice pianos in their store (a piano that sits in one of their practice rooms and people play money to come practice on it) or they could get another better used one for me so that i could play it first and decide if i wanted that one (for a bit more money) or the one that was already in their store. that was the best option so far...even though both of the pianos they were offering were above wanted i wanted to pay (what i wanted to pay = as little as possible...). i was entering into this with information in my mind that told me that in the US, i should be able to get a used piano in decent condition for $200-300 (right??), and a piano tuner would be able to help me fix / take care of it so that it would be enough for me to just play for fun. i don't need anything fancy. however, my chinese friend explained to me later, used pianos are not in abundance in china, like they are in the US. considering that 30-40 years ago, probably hardly any family in all of china would have owned a piano or had one in their home, why would there now suddenly be used pianos sitting around waiting to be bought by a foreigner like me? i was pleased by the mathematical explanation that the ratio of used pianos to the number of people in the US is much greater than the ratio of used pianos to the number of people in china. therefore, the price of a used piano in china is understandably higher. so i paid less than 50% of the price of the cheapest new piano i found....but still...my american-used-piano-mind is cringing. and i chose the slightly more expensive piano that they ordered, rather the one that was already in their practice room, because the one in the practice room had surely seen better days. and i don't have enough experience with chinese piano tuners yet to know if they will really be able to fix things that i know that a piano tuner should be able to fix. these are things that will be discovered in the future.
for now, i have a piano. but it is not yet in my apartment. on the 19th floor. whether or not the piano can be successfully delivered to and moved into my apartment is another story.
(1) ~ $2600
(2) ~ $9800
(3) to my bank account, that is, not to my health or anyone else's
(4) ~ $330
so i tried to figure out if it was possible to get a used piano in china. every piano in a store seemed to be a new one. the only way i knew of to get something secondhand is through taobao. taobao is like the chinese version of amazon. except maybe more so. you can get literally anything on there. some foreigners buy their cheese off of taobao. i bought some sweaters once. and medicine that i didn't feel like trying to find in a pharmacy. taobao requires the help of a chinese friend though, sometimes to properly search for something, if i don't know how to say it or type it in chinese. sometimes to communicate with the seller to make sure i'm getting what i actually mean to be getting. and then to actually order it, since adding the feature to my chinese bank card that allows me to use it to buy things online in china requires filling out paperwork in chinese and registering online in chinese, plus it would be dangerous (3) for me to have unlimited access to buying things on taobao on my own. all of that means, i have to have a chinese friend help me buy things on taobao. but i can search, to a certain extent, on my own.
so i tried searching for secondhand pianos (in chinese). they exist! they even had some for around 2000 RMB (4) (that was about the lowest price i saw). that seemed more like my price range. but the thing with buying something on taobao is that once you get it, it's pretty much yours. it is possible to return things, but you have to pay for the shipping and go through the trouble of mailing it and all that. how would i ship back a piano if it came and it didn't like it? i would have to just keep it. i didn't like the idea of buying a piano that i hadn't even tried playing. what if it annoyed me when i played it? or something major in it was broken? it would be sad to spend that money and be annoyed by the piano instead of being able to really enjoy it. but the options at this point were 2-3000 RMB for a piano i'd just have to buy sight unseen, or 16000 RMB for a new piano.
but then, i mentioned this dilemma to a chinese friend, and she happened to know someone whose husband works in a music store. she asked, and they would be able to offer me one of the practice pianos in their store (a piano that sits in one of their practice rooms and people play money to come practice on it) or they could get another better used one for me so that i could play it first and decide if i wanted that one (for a bit more money) or the one that was already in their store. that was the best option so far...even though both of the pianos they were offering were above wanted i wanted to pay (what i wanted to pay = as little as possible...). i was entering into this with information in my mind that told me that in the US, i should be able to get a used piano in decent condition for $200-300 (right??), and a piano tuner would be able to help me fix / take care of it so that it would be enough for me to just play for fun. i don't need anything fancy. however, my chinese friend explained to me later, used pianos are not in abundance in china, like they are in the US. considering that 30-40 years ago, probably hardly any family in all of china would have owned a piano or had one in their home, why would there now suddenly be used pianos sitting around waiting to be bought by a foreigner like me? i was pleased by the mathematical explanation that the ratio of used pianos to the number of people in the US is much greater than the ratio of used pianos to the number of people in china. therefore, the price of a used piano in china is understandably higher. so i paid less than 50% of the price of the cheapest new piano i found....but still...my american-used-piano-mind is cringing. and i chose the slightly more expensive piano that they ordered, rather the one that was already in their practice room, because the one in the practice room had surely seen better days. and i don't have enough experience with chinese piano tuners yet to know if they will really be able to fix things that i know that a piano tuner should be able to fix. these are things that will be discovered in the future.
for now, i have a piano. but it is not yet in my apartment. on the 19th floor. whether or not the piano can be successfully delivered to and moved into my apartment is another story.
(1) ~ $2600
(2) ~ $9800
(3) to my bank account, that is, not to my health or anyone else's
(4) ~ $330
Question: How much is 16,000 RMBs in dollars? And, I don't think you could actually get a DECENT used piano for less than $500-$700, depending on the brand and style.
ReplyDelete16000 RMB is about $2500. I've known people to get used pianos in the states for around $200, though I'm sure it depends on if you know the person you're buying it from, and if you want particular things. (also, who wrote the above comment?)
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