A somewhat bizarre video made its rounds on Chinese social media this week, showing Chinese employees crawling on their hands and feet during an official event.

The video, that was recorded during a Chinese New Year annual company dinner, was first posted by a popular Weibo blogger (@社畜茶水间) on January 18.

The 15-second clip shows how both men and women dressed in formal attire crawl on the ground while loudly repeating: “I had promised, I take responsibility” (“我承诺，我担当”). The scene was filmed by one of the people attending the annual dinner.

With over 21,620 shares on Weibo and over 300,000 ‘likes,’ the post stirred controversy among Chinese netizens this week. A hashtag relating to the incident received approximately 60 million views (#业绩没达标在年会上爬三圈#).

According to the post, crawling on the ground is a punishment for those employees who fail to achieve their promised sales performance. The company was later identified as a Chinese food and beverage corporation.

The majority of netizens criticized the video. Many consider the punishment to be degrading to these individuals, calling it a “practice of slavery.”

Employees of the company have reportedly responded to the controversy, saying that nobody was forced to crawl on the ground and that it was a “voluntary” action. The response was widely disregarded on Weibo.

This is not the first time a video like this, in which employees seemingly punished in bizarre ways, goes viral on Chinese social media.

In 2017, another video in which employees slapped each other’s face with great force also spread on Weibo.

The rise of these peculiar business practices result partly from the growing focus on “wolf culture” (狼性文化), a term that was popularized by tech giant Huawei and was meant to promote a team spirit among employees.

Although “wolf culture” should encourage strong teamwork, it is also used by some companies to justify the cruelty of these kinds of punishment.

In an online poll by Sina Tech asking Weibo users if they would quit their job if their work environment was similar to that in the video, 70% of respondents indicated that they would not tolerate such a situation at all. Over 2000 of the survey respondents, some 15%, indicated that they would not necessarily quit their job.

“Watching this video, I wondered, are we really in the year 2020?” one Weibo commenter asked.

By Bobby Fung (@bobbyfungmr)

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