'Vulgar' and 'pornographic' dance to celebrate Tsinghua University anniversary lambasted online

 
Tsinghua University faced criticism over the weekend for approving a dance that some considered vulgar.  A short video clip of nine women dancing during the anniversary celebration of a prestigious Chinese university over the weekend was panned for being "pornographic" and "vulgar".  The short video features the women dancing while wearing golden dresses decorated with tassels during the 110th anniversary celebration at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China's top schools.

The women danced for about two minutes in front of the school's iconic Grand Auditorium on Saturday while a marching band played music in the background. The dance was choreographed to music played by a marching band behind them.  The video soon became a topic of discussion in China over the weekend. Jenny Lai, a music professor at a university in Guangzhou, said the Tsinghua students had their right to dance, but it was "humiliating" for the school to approve the dance to be staged in public. "It shows that Tsinghua University has poor aesthetic sense," Lai told the South China Morning Post. "It's OK that you dance non-professionally. But you cannot choose those types of dresses and make-up." "Even dancers at my son's primary school's gala shows are better packaged than these Tsinghua girls," she said. US-based writer Qiao Mu, who graduated from Tsinghua, said he felt disappointed with the dance. "The choreographic design is lousy, the women's performance is rough and the music is embarrassing. If not for the school's name or the Auditorium appearing in the video, I would have thought the dance was part of an outdoor disco or an entertaining gig at a rural market, or a dance to celebrate the opening of a bathing centre," wrote Qiao. After catching eels for tuition, man's PhD acknowledgement inspires China.  His comment received more than 95,000 likes on Weibo, China's Twitter-like service.

Another user said "This vulgar 'sexy dance' is not serious at all. It is not suitable for this top university's birthday event. I cannot help believing that our best university and our young people are degenerating. How sad!" Tsinghua was ranked as the 15th best university in the world by QS World University Rankings last year and ranked 1st in Asia in the US News & World Report.

Not everyone agreed with the critics. "The girls are, after all, not professional dancers. It's impossible for them to dance at the level required by the National Centre for the Performing Arts," wrote a user on Weibo. "I think their dance is good. They showed their dynamics and they danced happily." Another person echoed the comment by saying "There should not be a problem for the Tsinghua women to dance like this. The school's birth celebration is supposed to be for students to get together and celebrate. The dance showcases the students' youth and freedom. It's not necessary to lambast them."

An editorial at news portal Thepaper.cn on Sunday said people could criticise the dance, but being rude was not acceptable. "Some individual online celebrities and internet users deliberately depict the dance as pornographic. They use bad language to attack those women … It's obviously a type of online violence against the women," the article said. "Every person has shortcomings," it continued, pointing out that the Tsinghua women excelled in academics, not dancing. "We shouldn't take this small incident seriously. Nor should we launch personal attacks on these girls on the internet."