Charity briefs

Piano auction nets $1.54m for good causes

A piano, made in Luoshe, Zhejiang province, was auctioned for 9.9 million yuan ($1.54 million) for charity in Beijing, Xinhua News Agency reported late last month.

The grand piano had made an appearance at the Shanghai Expo in 2010. The small river town is well-known for its piano-manufacturing industry which makes more than 40,000 pianos, about one-eighth of the country's total piano output last year, and had about 400 million yuan in sales.