So a little over a week ago I happen to catch a video uploaded by a YouTuber known for his London train station public piano playing. I'd never seen him before, but apparently since the video was trending hard, it was in my feed. I watch it as it was live streaming, and witnessed the hilarity that ensued that has since become an international meme.
Apparently, this guy, Brendan Kavanaugh, AKA Dr. K., was playing on a public piano set up in a very large mall like area of a London train station. There were these young Asian people were standing around watching, some of them filming with their phones, but when they noticed that Dr. K had somebody filming him and the surrounding crowd, including them, they approached him and asked them to delete the footage showing their faces. It seems they were under some understanding that their images could not be depicted and displayed for YouTube without their consent.
In the UK, as here in the US, people in public spaces do not have the right to deny photographs or videotaping in public places. That being said of course, every jurisdiction and law enforcement officer has their own interpretation of the rights people have on either side of the argument. For instance here in the United States, such image capturing is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. I'm not sure what laws are in place in the UK regarding the same issue.
Nevertheless, the exchange between these young people and the piano player got a bit heated as Brendan refused to delete footage yet the spokesperson for the group of apparently Chinese Nationals came across in a very entitled and confrontational way as to draw even more attention to the interchange going on. Soon a larger crowd had gathered and issues started escalating into not only free speech rights also the spokesman for the Chinese group asserting that the white piano player was being racist because he was pointing out the fact that the group were holding small PRC national flags, Brendan calling them "communist flags." Then the police got involved and like police everywhere in situations of filming in public at first they got it wrong and they were called out. Both sides went to their respective corners, so to speak, as the video streamed on. After it was all said and done, Brendan wasn't ordered to delete any video although since it was live streaming it would have been a moot point anyway, but apparently the piano in question was cordoned off the next day.
Well what with the internet being the internet, this row eventually made its circuit and now this incident is pretty famous. Here's the original video in question, especially take note of the part where the Chinese spokesperson starts to scream at Brendan when he thinks that he has touched one of the young ladies inappropriately or at least is trying to feign as such.
Oh by the way, the title of this post not only refers to a common hack song that even the most beginner piano player learns to play, but I noticed that Brendan riffed out a note or two of it in the midst of this brouhaha but then suspended his no-doubt urge to play the song as a tribute to perhaps the simple ridiculousness of the situation and a tongue-in-cheek poke at the peculiar current day rigid CCP mentality.
I mean think about it, and is it racist to suggest so, but why do Asian people insist on continuing to use chopsticks anyway? Other than a stubborn insistence on "their way is best," surely science has proven that a fork, knife and spoon are far more efficient. Oh stop with the idea of calling this mentality racist. No more so than our old pal Rosie O'Donnell here pantomiming what Mandarin sounds like to Western ears.
Thank you and ching chong!