Bored, Locked-Down Shanghai Elites Pay Africans to Dance for Them

While many Shanghai residents are scrambling to find food and dying from lack of medical care during the third week of the city’s harsh coronavirus lockdown, others are indulging in a craze for paying shirtless African dancers to record customized cheer-up videos.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) noticed the “video well-wishes” fad includes some productions featuring “Caucasian women, believed to be from Russia or Ukraine,” but the most popular options feature muscular shirtless African men dancing around with signs and goofy festive paraphernalia:

The dancers in the videos hold up a blackboard with Chinese characters for specific residential complexes’ names and messages of support. The actors will follow a Chinese man who reads the blessing messages aloud in Mandarin.

It costs dozens of yuan to make a video that lasts for around 30 seconds. The foreign actors will also sing or dance if the customers pay an extra fee of 100 to 200 yuan (US$15.70 to $31.40).

Some African men are seen holding guns in the videos, posing like mercenary soldiers. Others are dressed in the traditional clothing of various regions of Africa.

The videos are usually around 30 seconds long and cost up to $30, depending on how much singing and dancing they include. They are produced by Chinese agents working overseas who advertise through Chinese social media. Customers apparently prefer to call them “blessing videos.” 

The dance videos were originally designed to celebrate birthdays and similar occasions, but they have become so popular as morale boosters during the grinding Shanghai lockdown that the suppliers can barely keep up with demand. Some agencies report producing over 200 videos a day over the past week.

“It seems that all Shanghai residents are trying to contact me. Some of my African dancers are dehydrated from dancing too much,” one agent said.

Meanwhile, some of Shanghai’s captive citizens report they have only a few days of food left, and they are growing more skeptical of the city’s endless rounds of mandatory coronavirus testing, where a single positive result from half a dozen tests or more can get an unlucky family carted off to an unpleasant “quarantine center.”