Of all the poorly designed things you'll see in China, service windows that force people to bend over or crouch are among the most annoying. But what appears to be an recurring Chinese design flaw has been proved by a hit TV show to be a bureaucratic mechanism used to exploit power over the public.

READ: TV Tuesday: Getting the Last Laugh on Graft With 'The Name of the People'

The television show The Name of the People has been lighting up the airwaves in China this season, offering the first portrayal of a corrupt highly-ranked government official on Chinese TV sets. But of all the social commentary offered on the show, none have been as effective as how these windows elevate Chinese institutions over the people they are supposed to serve.

In one scene, secretary Li Dakang has fictional Jingzhou District Chief Sun Liancheng speak to him through a tiny wall aperture as a way to teach him a lesson. The show makes a point of displaying Sun's discomfort, depicting him as sweating and with his knees shaking due to having to stoop so low.

In another scene, Li willingly suffers the indignity of speaking through the tiny, low-hanging window in order to get his point across to another secretary. By pointing out the inconvenience of the windows, Li becomes an audience surrogate, concluding that this is no way to serve the public.

It's an opinion that has galvanized the public. In the weeks since they were featured on The Name of the People, examples of the windows appearing in real-life have been trending upon Chinese social media circles.

Here's one at a real estate registry office in Beijing's Haidian District:

This is the scene at the real estate registry office in Chaoyang, Beijing:

The Furong sub-police station in Hefei, Anhui:

The check-in window at Beijing's Fuwai Cardiovascular hospital:

A social security office in Zhengzhou:

A housing management and real estate trade office in Ji'an, Jiangxi:

Chinese authorities have been quick to respond to accusations that their institutions feature "Ding Yizhen" windows, so-named after the show's corrupt deputy mayor of Jingzhou, with many places saying that they have immediately made renovations to fix the problem.

But these windows have been around for years and are endemic to China, and the effective call to action is a result of how The Name of the People demonstrated these windows are a symbolic display of the power inequality. Despite the oft-quoted slogan "To serve the people," these windows force the public to physically bow and and even kneel when attempting to obtain service.

According to NetEase, this is a display of power by people in power. Describing the service windows an "an ingenious use of physiological and psychological principles," NetEase accused government and institutional workers of being self-serving, saying "the comfort of others is not worth their consideration."

"Why is government service so full of doors that are difficult to enter, faces that are hard to see, and things that are hard to get done? It's because public opinion in China has no way of influencing its own fate," wrote NetEase.

CCTV also concluded that the government must do more to serve the public:

Whether or not a barrier is erected is not about a renovation issue, but a issue about the government's distance from the people. Whether or not a service counter is built high or low is not a design issue, but an issue of equality between party officials and the masses. Whether or not to spare the public from having to suffer small indignities is not an issue about procedures, but an issue regarding the government's service to the people.

Even though it's a problem that has been around in China for many years, it seems that low-lying service windows have required public scrutiny in order to implement change, similar to a number of other cases.

Last year, Beijing police initiated a crackdown after a video of a woman angrily complaining about ticket scalpers at a Beijing hospital went viral, highlighting a problem that has been around for decades. As well, authorities ramped up efforts to fight air pollution after former CCTV reporter Chai Jing published a documentary video called Under the Dome, attracting some 200 million views before being removed from the Chinese Internet.

Watch the now-infamous "Ding Yizhen window" scenes from The Name of the People below:

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Twitter: @Sinopath

Images: SouthCN, ChinaIRN, Sina Blog, JL Online, NetEase, HiNews, Aihami News,