Excerpt from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

With that, CK began playing one: a slow, sad melody that conjured up a cold, lonely street in Paris. Or Shanghai.

CK's first job interview after college was at Pearl River Piano, China's largest accordion manufacturer. All the practice as a child had finally paid off. After the encounter with his father's razor blade, he'd come to accept the idea that he would spend the remainder of his teenage years living under his father's roof. So he decided to focus on what would come after. He worked hard in school, practiced the accordion, and earned a spot at a few hundred miles from home at a college in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, where he studied music. His Pearl River interviewer was impressed that he played the accordion, and within minutes CK found himself in the president's office. Pearl River's president handed him an accordion and removed his own from a case next to his desk. The two played a duet together, and when the president asked CK to play a solo, he thought about it carefully.

"I picked a very complicated piece: Liszt's 'La Campanella.' I got the job."

CK was assigned a position in the company's accordion sales and marketing department. For the first time in his life, CK's father was proud of him. Pearl River was one of a handful of state-owned musical instrument makers that had survived the country's ambitious market reforms. Sales were picking up, thanks to China's rising consumer class. CK would receive a competitive salary, health benefits, and a generous state pension. But the work was mind numbing. "Each day you'd work two or three hours and then you'd run out of things to do, so you'd just sit around chatting, reading the newspaper," CK said. "Others used the time to cultivate relationships with each other, but I didn't see the point of that."

Instead, CK spent his free time looking for a more interesting job. After a quick search, he found one: Polverini, an Italian accordion maker, had opened a tiny factory a dozen miles west in the suburbs of Shanghai. The company sought an assistant to liaise between its Italian factory manager and its Chinese workers.

Polverini's accordions were world-class – Pearl River accordions seemed like plastic toys in comparison. The job would be technically challenging: Kai would have to learn every step in the manufacturing process so that he could help teach low-skilled assembly line workers how to do it.

CK read the job posting over and over.

"It sounded interesting," CK told me. "I could finally learn something."

When CK called home to say he found a new job outside the state system, his father was livid. "You can't just walk away from the iron rice bowl!" his dad screamed over the phone. His new job failed to deliver a step up in pay, and he'd also lose the state benefits package he'd gotten at Pearl River.

"Suddenly, my dad felt unsafe," CK said, "He was extremely angry with me. He kept repeating the same thing: 'When you work for the state, your future is unlimited!"

In the early 2000s, though, that was no longer true. CK's father still hadn't found a job since he was laid off from Hengyang City Number Two Construction Company. At forty-seven, CK's mother was pressured into early retirement after Hengyang Chemical Factory's orders were decimated by new competition from China's nascent private sector. In 2001, China had entered the World Trade Organization, and cushy jobs at state-owned enterprises were becoming rare. Capitalism was the new norm. CK began to feel that his parents, exhausted from a lifetime of dependency on the state, were now adrift in these new surroundings, and each had begun looking to him for financial stability.   

CK explained his decision patiently. He wasn't learning anything by watching others socialize at Pearl River. At Polverini he'd at last acquire the skills to develop himself and his individual talents. This is something you should be able to relate to, he told his father gently.

Excerpted from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.