‘Packing genius’: China kindergarten boy, 6, who deftly packs e-commerce products for family firm goes viral, earns online plaudits
- Youngster packs, folds, seals, labels boxes, loves to help parents
- Mother says he does it easily, efficiently and started when he was ‘very young’
Footage of a young boy skilfully packaging courier items has gone viral on mainland social media, winning the youngster widespread plaudits.
A video clip of the six-year-old kindergarten pupil in Yiwu in eastern China’s Zhejiang province was released by his mother on Douyin at the end of January, Shandian News reported.
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Little boy skilfully packs products for family business
The clip shows the boy, identified as Taotao, efficiently folding cardboard boxes, sealing them with packing tape and sticking on courier labels.
Taotao’s parents own an e-commerce store in Yiwu, which has been dubbed China’s small commodities capital.
“Lunar New Year is looming and many of our workers have left Yiwu to return to their hometown to celebrate the festival. My son saw that we were busy with packing and said he would love to give us a hand,” his mother said.
“He can do it easily because he has helped with the packing since he was very young,” she added. “He can pack as many as 100 small boxes a day.”
The mother also shared a video clip of Taotao playing a small role in packing courier items beside an assembly line.
“Taotao, do you want to go home?” His mother asks in the video.
“No, I don’t want to go home. I want to do work,” he replies, adding: “I just like packing things.”
The mother said her son spends a lot of time playing in her company’s storage premises.
“He likes helping us and doing simple things, just as we helped our parents plant rice in the field when we were small children,” she said.
Children helping their parents with their businesses cannot be regarded as underage labour because there is no employment relationship, said Zhang Lili, a lawyer at Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, on the website 110ask.com.
“It is legal and reasonable for children to help their parents,” said Zhang.
The videos have generated a heated discussion online and delighted people on mainland social media.
“He does better than many adults. What a packing genius,” one person on Douyin said.
“When he applies for a job in the e-commerce industry at age 20, he could say he has 18 years of job experience,” another user said.
“He is a sensible boy. He understands the hardship from which his parents earn money,” another wrote.
In 2022, a nine-year-old girl in southeastern Guangdong province who proficiently killed and scaled fish at her father’s stall trended online.
The man said his daughter often came to help at weekends after she finished her homework.
