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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3170974
On Wednesday last week, one of China’s largest tea chains found itself at the center of an online storm after a video emerged of employees for the company apparently wearing cardboard signs and makeshift cardboard handcuffs to enforce workplace discipline — public displays of shame that had disturbing echoes of the country’s political past.
The offending post, made on September 17 to the official Douyin and Xiaohongshu accounts of the Guangdong operations of Good Me (古茗茶饮) — a tea chain with more than 5,000 locations across the country — showed several employees on site at a Good Me shop standing with their heads cast down, their hands bound in front with what appeared to be cardboard cup holders. Handwritten signs around their necks read: “The crime of forgetting to include a straw”; and “The crime of knocking over the teapot.”
[…]
For China’s media and internet authorities, the Cultural Revolution is generally not a subject to be talked about at all. And for many Chinese who remember the period, which was ended by the ouster and arrest in October 1976 of the so-called Gang of Four, it remains a silent source of pain and fear.
[…]
Most comments on the video on both platforms expressed shock and ridicule at what seemed to be extremely unfair and inhumane treatment of employees on the one hand, and an acute lack of good taste on the other. By Wednesday the video had been removed and Good Me was scrambling to contain the damage.
[…]
OP omits the context that they posted this as a joke/meme. Still horrifying, like if you parodied the Nazi-era Star of David.
I don’t omit the context. They say it was intended as a joke after it backfired on social media, and the company’s apology - as the article states - is somewhat quiet (on the other hand, the Chinese government - usually not averse to censor content it deems unpleasant - apparently had no problem with it).
That’s an interesting point, but you didn’t discuss that either. I understand that it may not have been your intention to mislead, but my first impression of the headline is that this was an actual punishment.
Suppose you see such posts on social media, would you really think, “Ah, that’s a funny joke”, and laugh about it?
As the article suggests, there haven’t been too many with that sense of humor to say the least.
Ah, I was expecting to see tankies in here attacking the use of a joke to make Chinese companies seem authoritarian… But the full context suddenly makes clear why they aren’t touching it.