Intro

In China, a man has been playing the piano outdoors, often in places of great sadness—the epicenter of an earthquake, a dam that submerged villages, a street emptied during a COVID lockdown.

He plays just one song: "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," by the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

In the fall of 2022, one of his performance videos goes viral, tapping into years of unexpressed collective grief. In this episode of The Sunday Story, NPR correspondent John Ruwitch asks: who is the piano man, and why has he chosen this path?

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