Source:
https://scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2156982/chinese-tea-company-workers-eat-rice-balls-urinal
China/ People & Culture

Chinese tea company workers eat rice balls from urinal

Firm says bathroom lunches are an annual tradition, as video of event goes viral online

A worker at a tea company in southeast China appears to eat a rice ball from a urinal: Photo: Pearvideo.com

A video of workers from a tea company in southeast China apparently eating rice balls from a urinal and having their lunch in a bathroom became a big hit online last week.

The footage shows about 25 employees of Tenfu Group taking part in the event, which the company said via social media was an annual event designed to show how seriously it took the issue of hygiene.

“Our company has had the ‘bathroom training’ tradition for supervisors for 25 years,” a senior manager is heard to say in the video.

In another clip, a woman identified as a supervisor at the Zhangzhou, Fujian province-based company is seen placing several rice balls into a urinal and moving them about with her hands.

“I think I’ve ‘fried’ them … let me be the first one to eat,” she said.

The company said the bathroom lunch was a 25-year-old tradition. Photo: Pearvideo.com
The company said the bathroom lunch was a 25-year-old tradition. Photo: Pearvideo.com

Other people are then seen taking balls from the urinal and eating them, while others sit around a table in the middle of the toilet.

A cleaner seen in the clip is heard to say: “I always put my heart into this cleaning job and I aim to clean it until there’s no strange smell and people can even eat a meal there.”

The unsavoury event took place in July 4 and the video clip was uploaded to Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, two weeks later.

Despite the company giving the event extensive coverage on its WeChat account, it denied it was a publicity stunt.