Militaristic Chinese Waitress Group Performance Goes Viral

On Sina Weibo:

#Dandong Arirang#

Dandong Arirang Restaurant’s “Show” Attracts Onlookers, So Exaggeratedly Excited As If They Injected Chicken Blood

A video titled “Dandong Arirang Restaurant Training Exercise” has been widely circulated on Sina Weibo. In the video, the excited female waitstaff perform a 15-minute synchronized and exaggerated show. Netizens commented saying: “An army of women that has been completely trained by a militarized management style”, “They are performing with their lives”, “Some people watch and are bowled over by laughter, truly out of the ordinary; Some people see and cry, making money sure isn’t easy”…What do you think?

On leading Chinese video-sharing website Youku, this video accumulated nearly 2 million views in its first day and currently (at time of translation) has nearly 3 million views with over 42k comments spanning over 1400 pages. On leading Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo, the most popular posts about the video have thousands of comments and tens of thousands of reshares each.

Select Comments from Youku:

琢磨先生:

Taking back the Diaoyu Islands will now depend on this group of girls…

演员薛飞:

Our hard work today is for the niubi [boasting] our boss did yesterday! Just what did this company feed these children [young women]! Not only can we take back the Diaoyu Islands, we no longer have to fear alien invasions anymore!

夏凡:

Ruling the universe is imminent.

From China Daily:

Liaoning Dandong Arirang Restaurant’s Annual “Brainwashing Program” is Uncomfortable to Watch

“They’re performing with their lives! Making money sure isn’t easy!” Recently, on Weibo, a video titled “Restaurant Waitresses’s Extreme Joint Performance Captured” went viral on the internet. The “leading performers” in this video are employees of the Liaoning province Dandong Arirang Restaurant. In the video, the female staff neatly lined up in ranks shout passionate slogans and lines, the atmosphere simply stunning. Yesterday, this microblog post had many netizens commenting and forwarding, with netizens claiming this video shows a brainwashing joint performance, and millions of netizens ridiculing this video as essentially being a drama.

Yesterday, this reporter watched this 15 minute and 45 second long video. “With the person on the right as a marker, face and line up to the right!” Under the commands of a woman dressed in a black business suit, a group of women dressed as restaurant service staff began to line up. After lining up, the woman in black loudly shouted: “Reporting to Manager Wang, request performance.” Then the employees shout slogans, started their “daily morning reading”, with the slogans not only referencing company culture but also “quotes” guiding everyone on how they can become successful such as the woman in black loudly asking: “The fastest way to success is…?” and the other employees loudly shouting: “Following the right people, doing the right things.”… Throughout the entire performance, under the instructions and maneuvering of the woman in black, everyone passionately stamped their feet, moving in unison, and there was even a segment where they “passed through the line of fire”. Even as everyone was jumping and shouting, breathing heavily, everyone “advanced forward bravely”.

This video had netizens shocked, with them expressing their various views. Many netizens criticized this kind of company and management style, with netizen “枪与红玫瑰” saying, “At first I thought it was funny at first, but then I felt uncomfortable, like it was a multilevel marketing event. This kind of company is really lousy, not valuing employees’ dignity, and inevitably will not achieve long-term success. Netizen “LoBer-V-E” also said, “This simply cannot be understood using the line of thinking possessed by normal people. Facing this kind of waitstaff will truly make you lose your appetite.”

Yesterday, this reporter called the Liaoning province Dandong Arirang restaurant. A worker of this restaurant told this reporter that the video spreading online is indeed a video of their restaurant employees’ team performance, and is a program for the restaurant’s annual meeting this year. With regards to this, well-known Southwestern psychologist Dr. Chen Zhilin expressed during an interview with this journalist that, with corporate culture that relies long-term on this kind of exaggerated show-like “motivational” activity, employees will not only have conflicts but even more will bring their discontent and resentment to their work, instead lowering work efficiency and service quality.