(Web Desk) - A Chinese odd jobs mobile app has cancelled a service allowing users to hire proxies to bow to elderly relatives during Lunar New Year visits.
Promotional images for the now-deleted offering showed an orange-uniformed worker kneeling, forehead to the floor, before a smiling elderly couple. The service sparked widespread online outrage and mockery, prompting scrutiny of China's "hire-anything" sector.
"Filial piety should not be commoditised," one Weibo user said, referring to the culture of respect for and deference to older family members.
Visiting loved ones and offering good wishes are an important part of the traditional Lunar New Year holiday, although bowing is not widely practised today.
"After careful consideration, we have voluntarily removed the services that caused controversy," said odd jobs app UU Paotui, based in central China's Henan, in a Wednesday WeChat post.
As of Friday, the app still offered a New Year greeter service - with immediate dispatch options - but the 999 yuan ($144.77), two-hour bowing-for-hire package was no longer visible.
Buyers of the now-deleted bowing package could hire gig workers to buy and send gifts, "perform traditional etiquette", and offer "one minute of auspicious blessings" to loved ones, among other services.
The services were meant to help people living far from their families and those with mobility issues maintain traditional customs, UU Paotui said, adding it would offer triple compensation to customers who had already booked.
People who have moved away for work typically return home to visit their families for the most important festival on the Chinese calendar, creating a travel rush commonly referred to as the world's largest annual human migration.
In a nod to the increasingly virtual nature of social life in China, UU Paotui suggested replacing the in-person visits with an app could help avoid awkward social interactions.