The Story of Kepma and My Guitar

The Story of Kepma and My Guitar is Kepma’s comic-format record of the experiences shared between its founder, Peng Jinhui, and his guitar. Where can one guitar carry a person? The story begins in a rural village in Ningxiang, Hunan — from first bonding with a guitar, to entering the instrument industry, to the decision to build a guitar brand of his own. None of it followed a path designed in advance. It is about love, choice and persistence, and about how a Chinese guitar brand grew step by step from a first idea to where it is today.

What the comic covers

We reorganised and redrew those real experiences into this comic. It is not a complete corporate history nor a summary of success. What it keeps are the moments that truly shaped one person: the first time a guitar felt like a connection, the important decisions along the way, the difficulties and the persistence of starting a business, and — years later — how he still looks at the guitar, the brand, and the road he has travelled.

Preface

These stories are footprints I left on the way here. Some were ragged, some ridiculous, and some still make me wince when I remember them. But they really happened, and they really pushed me to where I am today. I am not a “veteran” who has already made it — I am still on the road, still learning, still making mistakes and adjusting in the wind and waves out there. So this is more of a mutual encouragement: for those of us still chasing a dream. May we all hold on to what we love through the uncertain days, keep a little stubbornness, and keep moving forward.

Story fragments

My first guitar was a gift from my elder sister — a 190-yuan Hongmian-brand guitar, back when her monthly salary was 800 yuan. To me that gift was priceless.

Not long after buying it, I was alone at Guangzhou railway station about to take a train back to Changsha. A stranger saw me carrying the guitar and struck up a conversation, offering to teach me. After an hour of talking, the 50 yuan I had hidden in my socks ended up in his pocket. My sister rushed over to rescue me, and I was crying so hard I could only manage one sentence: “Were you just about to hit me?”

Back then we all listened to music or English on small cassette players. One night, lying on the upper bunk with my headphones on, a hand reached out of the dark and yanked them off. I assumed it was a classmate prank, so I swung out — “crack” — and then the sound of the player hitting the floor. Wait, that felt wrong. My swing had landed on our homeroom teacher’s face. That evening he made me run thirty laps around the sports field.

Influenced by my mother, I loved singing as a child. With no cassette player of my own I would tag along to friends’ homes, then learn from my brother’s player, singing into the open fields while herding cattle — the fields as my stage, the wind and the herd as my audience. At the middle school singing contest I won first place with I Am a Chinese Person; I was still savouring what felt like the peak of my life when the principal pulled me back down to reality from the winners’ podium.

Chapter structure

The work is divided into a preface and several parts — part one, part two (in two volumes), part three and more — laid out in chronological order with comic panels and extensive handwritten text. You can browse it by chapter on screen or turn page by page.

Kepma was founded in 2009. Its factory covers roughly 50,000 square metres in Ningxiang, Hunan, and its brand proposition is simple: made from extreme love, born for outstanding feel.