A Chinese online domestic services platform has withdrawn its "proxy New Year's bow" service following public outcry, just ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
According to local media outlets including Jiemian News on January 11, the platform based in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, recently launched a service offering to perform traditional New Year's bows on behalf of customers. The service, priced at 999 yuan (approximately $140) for two hours, included delivering holiday gifts and conveying New Year's greetings.
The company explained that proxy workers would visit customers' family members, deliver greetings, perform traditional bows, and record the entire process on video to send to the customer. The service was intended for users unable to return to their hometowns to greet their parents or relatives.
However, the service drew sharp criticism on Chinese social media. Users complained that it amounted to "outsourcing filial piety" and reduced holiday greetings to "empty formality."
As controversy spread, the company issued a statement announcing it would discontinue the service "after careful review to avoid misunderstanding and conflict." The company added that it "had no intention of undermining traditional etiquette" and had only sought to help those living abroad or with limited mobility who cannot personally deliver New Year's greetings.
This is not the first attempt in China to outsource family rituals. In 2013, after the government mandated that adult children visit their elderly parents under a revised elderly rights protection law, services appeared on Taobao offering to visit parents for 100 yuan (approximately $14) per hour. Services hiring proxy boyfriends or girlfriends to accompany young people on their journey home during the Lunar New Year holiday also remain popular.
Behind this demand lies rapid urbanization and the social coming-of-age of the one-child policy generation. According to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, more than half of citizens aged 60 and above now live apart from their children as so-called "empty nest" elderly. In major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, as well as some rural areas, the figure exceeds 70%.
Young people who have left their hometowns to work in major cities often struggle to return home for holidays, effectively driving the outsourcing of filial duties.