A factory town where sax is king
By day, the factory workers pound sheets of brass into cylinders and slather metal buttons with glue. By night, they take their creations to the street and begin to play.
The soothing melodies flow through cornfields, street markets and public squares. They interweave with the shouts of street vendors hawking tofu and men playing mah-jong. This is the music of Sidangkou, a northern Chinese village of 4,000, where one sound rules above all else: the saxophone.
Farmers take the instrument into fields to belt out patriotic tunes against the sunset. Children play in all-saxophone bands at school. Shopkeepers set their ring tones to the wistful songs of Kenny G.
The saxophone has never had a large following in China, in part because it was long associated with jazz, individuality and free expression. After the Communist revolution of 1949, officials denounced the instrument for producing the “decadent music of capitalists.” But here in this town, the saxophone is king.
Sidangkou, which calls itself China’s “saxophone capital,” produces about 10,000 saxophones per month at more than 70 factories, according to Chinese news media.
“It’s vibrant and delightful,” said Wang Yuchun, the president of one of the largest producers, Tianjin Shengdi Musical Instrument Co. “It’s part of our lives now.”
For more than a century, the region around Sidangkou has been a hub of musical instrument manufacturing, including traditional Chinese instruments such as the sheng, a reed pipe, and the di, a bamboo flute. Factories in the region produce thousands of oboes, trumpets and tubas each year.
Yet nothing seems to have captured the imagination of people here like the saxophone.
Sidangkou began producing saxophones in the 1990s, as China became a powerhouse exporter and Western cultural influences become more prominent. Assembly line workers began trying their hand at the instrument, mimicking famous players they saw on television. By the mid-2000s, saxophone fever had broken out.
Fu Guangcheng came to Sidangkou in 1995 to work as a polisher on an assembly line. He quickly fell in love with the sound of the saxophone and started formal studies.
“It’s my career; it’s my life,” said Fu, a factory worker. “I wake up seeing saxophones and go to sleep seeing saxophones.”
Fu said he was proud of Sidangkou. “It’s a miracle that even rural people who are used to holding hoes in our hands can make Western instruments,” he said.
Others have found playing the instrument to be a source of relaxation. They join friends to play together outdoors, often with orchestral tracks blaring in the background.
“It’s just so beautiful, I don’t know how to describe it,” said Zhao Baiquan, 55. “No matter how angry I am, it calms me down.”
The repertoire in Sidangkou leans toward traditional Chinese songs and patriotic tunes, although there are some exceptions. One favourite is “Going Home,” the1989 Kenny G song that is widely played in Chinese shopping malls, schools and train stations as they close down.