A Chinese delivery platform’s experiment in monetising traditional ritual sparked a sudden online furor this week and a rapid rollback. UU Paotui introduced a Lunar New Year offering that included “代磕头” — a rider physically performing three kowtows to elders on behalf of a distant relative — priced at 999 yuan; public backlash prompted the company to remove the item within 24 hours.
UU framed the package as a pragmatic response to a growing cohort of migrant workers and others who cannot return home for the holidays. The platform temporarily retained more conventional services — help posting couplets, delivering gifts and on‑site visits priced from tens to several hundred yuan — while saying the kowtow option was pulled for “page optimisation” and might return after adjustments.
Riders on the platform gave a more prosaic account. A courier in Zhengzhou told a reporter he had accepted several “on‑site New Year” orders — buying and delivering groceries, offering greetings and helping paste spring couplets — and that he would be willing to perform a kowtow for the higher fee, though he had received no such bookings before the item was removed.
UU has been moving steadily into what it calls “emotional services”: last year it trialled tomb‑sweeping for Qingming, it has offered “apology proxies” in the past and runs services such as dog‑walking and medical‑visit assistance. Company spokespeople argue these offerings fill real gaps for people geographically separated from family and that they are not short‑term stunts but a strategy to build differentiated, higher‑margin services in a crowded delivery market.
Public reaction split sharply. Some netizens treated the product as a practical, even modern, way to perform filial duties when travel is impossible; others condemned the idea of placing a monetary price on intimate family gestures, arguing it corrodes the sincerity at the heart of filial piety and offends basic social norms. Social commentators and analysts warned the item crossed an ethical line and risked trampling on personal dignity and public order.
The episode exposes a wider tension in China’s expanding gig economy: platforms eager to lift average order values by selling personalised, affective labour are bumping into moral, cultural and reputational constraints. Services that trade in symbolic acts — bowing, mourning or apology — are especially sensitive because they embody collective values and cannot be easily reduced to a commercial transaction without provoking cultural backlash.
For platforms the lesson is immediate. Emotional‑service products can help boost revenue and customer stickiness, but they also carry asymmetric reputational risk. Regulators and public opinion can move quickly when commercial innovation touches on family values, forcing sudden reversals that leave companies exposed and couriers uncertain about the rules of engagement.
UU’s retreat is unlikely to end experiments in intimacy‑adjacent services, but it will probably force more cautious product design, clearer ethical guardrails and firmer consent mechanisms for both customers and riders. The balance firms strike between convenience, commerce and cultural norms will determine whether this niche becomes a sustainable line of business or a recurrent source of controversy.