Video footage shows employees at a Chinese beauty company crawling along the street on their hands and knees after failing to meet targets.
Pedestrians in Tengzhou, in the eastern Shandong province, are seen looking on in astonishment as half a dozen female workers and one man crawl along the street, led by a man carrying a flag bearing the company’s name.
The firm reportedly sells beauty products, and the unfortunate employees had failed to meet their end-of-year sales targets, according to local news website DZWWW.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The crawl came to an end when police intervened.
One of the women who participated in the punishment told local media that she did so voluntarily as “self-discipline” for failing to meet her targets, and said the other crawlers consisted of the company’s owners and other senior managers rather than junior employees.
Nonetheless, the footage quickly went viral, provoking a “hot discussion” online. Many commenters lambasted the firm’s bosses for the humiliating stunt, but others “targeted the employees for silently accepting such kind of behaviour”, says India Today.
Local authorities said the company has been temporarily closed for “rectification”, Yahoo reports.
English-language Chinese news and culture website Shanghai-ist notes that this is far from the first workplace punishment to go viral in China.
Similar scandals have seen displeased bosses “slap or spank workers, as well as making them eat live mealworms, choke down bitter gourd, or drink toilet water for coming up with sub-par results”.
-
The Liberal Democrats: on the march?Talking Point After winning their highest number of seats in 2024, can the Lib Dems marry ‘stunts’ with a ‘more focused electoral strategy’?
-
Your Party: a Pythonesque shamblesTalking Point Comical disagreements within Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's group highlight their precarious position
-
Sudoku medium: September 28, 2025The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
China is silently expanding its influence in American citiesUnder the Radar New York City and San Francisco, among others, have reportedly been targeted
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctionsThe Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
One year after mass protests, why are Kenyans taking to the streets again?today's big question More than 60 protesters died during demonstrations in 2024
-
What happens if tensions between India and Pakistan boil over?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As the two nuclear-armed neighbors rattle their sabers in the wake of a terrorist attack on the contested Kashmir region, experts worry that the worst might be yet to come
-
Why Russia removed the Taliban's terrorist designationThe Explainer Russia had designated the Taliban as a terrorist group over 20 years ago
-
Inside the Israel-Turkey geopolitical dance across SyriaTHE EXPLAINER As Syria struggles in the wake of the Assad regime's collapse, its neighbors are carefully coordinating to avoid potential military confrontations
-
'Like a sound from hell': Serbia and sonic weaponsThe Explainer Half a million people sign petition alleging Serbian police used an illegal 'sound cannon' to disrupt anti-government protests
