The Piano in a Factory , a lighthearted comedy focusing on the lives of laid-off workers in the 1990s, has won several domestic and international film festival awards and is acclaimed as one of the best movies in contemporary Chinese cinema. My analyses reveal that the laid-off workers live in what can be called an absurdist existence. Furthermore, the characters use humor as a strategy to evade, elude, and cope with the absurdity of life. By evoking laughter throughout and holding out hope at the end, Piano is able to rise above the absurdity that surrounds working-class lives through joy, hope, and faith. My article is here, published in Frontiers of Literary Studies in China.