Station Piano Becomes Symbol of Defiance After Chinese TV Crew Clashes With Pianist

Chinese TV Crew Clashes with Pianist, Turning Station Piano into Symbol of Defiance

January 26, 2024 TruthUSA

Pro-democracy musicians performed ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ at the piano. Mr. Kavanagh said authoritarian regimes are scared of ‘anything that undermines them.’

A street piano in London has accidentally become a symbol of defiance after a livestream of flag-waving Chinese TV crew clashing with a British pianist went viral.

Following the bizarre incident, in which the Chinese individuals demanded pianist Brendan Kavanagh not to show their faces on his popular YouTube channel, some musicians went to the piano at the St Pancras International station to play “Glory to Hong Kong”—a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Mr. Kavanagh, also known as Dr. K, told The Epoch Times that it’s “very interesting” how things have developed.

“So the piano has unintentionally become an anti-CCP [Chinese Communist Party] zone and an iconic symbol of freedom,” he said on Friday.

“So it’s very interesting how this has developed. I think it also shows how popular music and culture can effectively attack authoritarian regimes by providing freedom of expression.”

However, one of the pianists has since had his YouTube channel removed over “multiple or severe violations” of YouTube’s policy, leading to speculations that he was targeted by malicious complaints from pro-Beijing actors.

‘Image Rights’

Mr. Kavanagh is known for his YouTube videos showing him playing Boogie-woogie music on street pianos and interacting with other musicians and onlookers.

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During a livestream on Jan. 20, a group of Chinese individuals, who had had a friendly interaction with Mr. Kavanagh ahead of his livestream, approached Mr. Kavanagh and his camera person, asking the pianist not to broadcast their images because what they were doing was “non-disclosable.”

Mengying Liu, a social media influencer on YouTube and several Chinese platforms, who approached Mr. Kavanagh first, later said the group was filming a video for an unspecified Chinese platform ahead of the Chinese New Year, and that it was confidential until then.

However, this was not communicated during the argument, and the conversation got heated after a man from the group got involved.

The man, Leng Xuenian, or Newton Leng, asserted that they had “image rights,” threatened Mr. Kavanagh with lawsuits if he didn’t comply with their request, and accused Mr. Kavanagh of racism after the latter said they were “not in communist China.”

When Mr. Kavanagh tried to take a small Chinese flag from a woman’s hand to show it on camera, Mr. Leng began shouting “don’t touch her” repeatedly, adding, “You are not the same age.”

The woman, Zhang Ning, or, Adelina Zhang, was filmed shaking hands with Mr. Kavanagh when they spoke prior to the episode.

Under Chinese law, consent is needed to show images of a person for commercial reasons and some other circumstances. In Britain, it’s legal to film people in most public settings.

The Epoch Times approached Mr. Leng for comment.

‘Glory to Hong Kong’

The video went viral across the world. By Friday afternoon, it had had over eight million views, and Mr. Kavanagh said he had a lot of reactions from Taiwan and Hong Kong.

According to footage posted on social media, at least two pianists played “Glory to Hong Kong”—or “Do you hear the people sing?” from Les Misérables with the lyrics replaced—at the piano.

In one of the videos, a singer sang the song, with several pro-democracy demonstrators holding banners around the piano.

According to X account of Byron Wang, Mr. Leung had posted in a Facebook Group saying he had been told on Thursday that his channel had been removed, and his appeal was rejected after 43 minutes.