Sitting in his modest, sawdust-choked workshop on the outskirts of Shanghai, 67-year-old Shen Jian wonders aloud whether he’s wasted his life. The craftsman and factory owner has spent more than four decades dedicated to a singular pursuit: the manufacturing and selling of accordions. A low-margin business in the best of times, Shen has weathered layoffs, the challenges of starting a business almost from scratch, the dissolution of his marriage after years of long hours with little to show for it, and most recently, the collapse of sales during the pandemic.

Now, he sometimes wonders whether he made the right choices. “In reality I think my decision (to stay in the accordion industry) was probably a mistake,” Shen tells Sixth Tone. “But it’s the choice I made, and now I have to face the consequences.”

When Shen got his start making accordions all the way back in 1976, he had no particular interest in music, much less passion for it. Assigned a job at the Shanghai Accordion Factory after graduating from a vocational middle school, his only connection to the instrument was a faint childhood memory of a neighbor who played. “At the time, I thought it sounded beautiful, with rich tones,” he says. “It was an elegant instrument.”

Although accordions do not have a long history in China, they were quickly adopted by musicians after their widespread introduction in the first half of the 20th century. After the Russian revolution, a number of Russian accordionists and music teachers fled their homes and settled across China, from Harbin in the northeast to Shanghai and Guangzhou in the east and south, respectively. There, they eked out a living by giving performances and music lessons, gradually helping to cultivate a generation of accomplished Chinese players.

It was this group who took the instrument nationwide. In the 1950s and ’60s, military bands toured China, part of an effort by the People’s Republic to bring culture to the masses. On these tours, big bands and orchestras typically eschewed heavy and cumbersome pianos for accordions, giving many Chinese their first taste of the “rich tones” Shen remembers from his youth. And because the accordion was perceived — somewhat ironically, given the circumstances of its introduction to China — as having a socialist background, it was more accessible to ordinary Chinese worried about the “bourgeois” implications of taking up Western instruments like the guitar or piano.

Although Shen entered the factory at the tail end of this period, the early years of his career saw a boom in demand for accordions. The advent of “reform and opening-up” brought new wealth to China, and Chinese who grew up listening to the instrument began to buy their own. In 1980, the factory produced about 20,000 accordions a year, Shen says; by 1988, that number had risen to 53,000. There was enough demand for the instrument to support two major state-run accordion brands. Parrot, in the northern city of Tianjin, was modeled after factories found in the U.S.S.R. and Germany, while the Shanghai Accordion Factory’s Baile brand aped the design language of Italian producers.

But by the late ’80s, the industry was already beginning to wobble. The country’s reforms didn’t just bring new wealth, they also saw a flood of Western music and culture wash over China. Increasingly, parents wanted their kids to study more pedigreed instruments like the piano; the accordion, with its links to the staid socialist past, was out.

The state-owned factory where Shen worked was slow to adapt to this new reality. Demand fell and competitors sprung up in the countryside, undercutting them on price. By 2003, Shen had risen to a managerial position, but the factory, which originally promised employment for life, had reached the end of the line.

When he was laid off, Shen received 40,000 yuan in severance (approximately $4,830 at the time). After nearly 30 years in the same job, he was unemployed, almost 50, and living in a city undergoing a rapid increase in the cost of living.

“In Shanghai it was particularly clear-cut: If you were laid off, you were not going to be able to maintain your standard of living,” Shen says. Many of his coworkers simply couldn’t accept the loss of their job. He remembers friends who would pretend to go out to work, leaving home at 7 a.m. in nice shirts, only to wander around the streets until dark.

For his part, Shen was also unwilling to change industries. He may not have been passionate about the accordion when he joined the factory, but over the course of nearly three decades, he had grown attached. “Although I can’t play the accordion, I have a deep understanding of it,” Shen says. “I entered the factory right out of vocational school. I’ve been doing this my whole life, which is to say I have a certain fondness and sentimentality for the process.”

So he made what he now sees as a rash choice: Pulling together his savings and severance, he bought what equipment he could from his old employer and set up a new factory. The name he gave his new company, Xiangle, contained a hidden reference to his old firm. It means “Missing Baile.”

It was, he admits, more of an emotional decision than a logical one. He had no answer for the flood of cheap accordions being produced in new, often village-based factories around China — or really, any business plan at all. In fact, he says at first his new factory couldn’t even produce accordions, only parts: “I couldn’t bring a single mold with me. I had to buy them and create the rest from scratch.”

Pretty soon, he was sinking more and more money into the plant, while the business scraped by selling replacement pieces. But he had one ace up his sleeve: the contact of an Italian manufacturer interested in sourcing accordions from China.

Italy is a center for accordion production, and Shen knew a lifeline when he saw one. Rather than try to compete with low-priced sellers catering to the domestic market, Shen pivoted to producing parts and assembling for export. He even brought in an experienced Italian accordion craftsman to mentor his workers and improve the quality of their crafts, though he says the partnership deteriorated due to the language barrier and other disagreements. “He told me that if I follow his instructions and guidance, my factory can meet Italian standards,” Shen recalls, adding, “Even if I didn’t reach the Italian level, I could certainly improve and reach a higher tier.”

For the first time since he started his factory, Shen had a business model. But his problems were far from over. To meet the higher standards demanded by his new clients, he and his staff had to work frequent overtime. He says he used to arrive at the factory around 8 a.m. and leave as late as 11 p.m.

He spent almost no time at home, and what little free time he did have was spent worrying about the plant’s fortunes. “I didn’t want to sleep,” Shen says. “I would think about too much stuff, like the potential to go bankrupt.”

In 2016, after more than a decade of barely seeing each other, Shen’s wife asked for a divorce. “I feel very guilty,” he says. “Over the past 20 years, I didn’t shoulder my responsibilities at home, including my son’s education and daily life. My family needed me, but I wasn’t there.”

As he sees it, it was a binary choice: Either dedicate his life to the accordion factory and keep it afloat or spend more time with his family and watch the plant founder. “If I stayed with my family, it would have meant declaring bankruptcy,” he says. “If I kept working in the factory, it meant divorce. The decision to not declare bankruptcy and continue was incredibly difficult. It felt almost like a foolish choice, but I couldn’t let my life’s work be ruined by my own hands.”

He agreed to the divorce. At the civil affairs bureau, Shen’s ex-wife gave him a piece of candy, a nod to the traditional Chinese practice of passing out wedding sweets. They signed the papers together with the sweets in their mouths.

Meanwhile, his factory still wasn’t on solid ground. In 2019, just before the pandemic hit, Shen received a major order, only to have to shut down production before it was finished. Shen describes that period as the closest his factory ever came to the brink of collapse. “Production orders couldn’t be completed, and I needed to reassure my customers,” he says. “Wages couldn’t be paid on time, so I also needed to talk to my workers. And the landlord was pressuring me for rent as well. The stress was too much.”

“My workers were very understanding and tolerant about the delayed wages,” Shen recalls. “During that time, they provided tremendous support. Sometimes the factory delayed wages by one, two, or even up to five months, but they remained supportive. I am extremely grateful for their help and understanding.”

Now, Shen says business is bouncing back. His factory has enough orders to ensure consistent production, and he’s been able to hire younger workers willing to learn the craft. Last year, after a drawn-out legal process, he even managed to secure the Baile trademark, allowing him to once again produce instruments under the venerable brand.

“When I think back on why I made the decision (to start a factory) all those years ago, it was because I felt I owed something to all those craftspeople I’d worked with for decades,” Shen says.

As for whether it was worth it, that depends. “If we can keep the Baile brand alive, then I think it’ll all have been worthwhile,” he says. “I just want to do right by it.”

Contributions: Liu Zhuo’er and Ding Yining.