Chinese Factory Draws Flak for Hosting 'Kissing Contest' to Celebrate Reopening after Lockdown

After spending days in lockdown, parts of China are slowly returning to normal life. Some, however, have been facing flak for acting with too much callous over-enthusiasm.

Following a relaxation in lockdown restrictions recently, a factory in the country's southern part hosted a bizarre 'kissing contest' to celebrate its reopening. The incident, however, received a lot of flak on social media.

According to reports, the furniture factory named, 'Yueva' in the city of Suzhou invited 10 couples to kiss each other while maintaining borderline 'social distancing'. How? Well, by placing a plexiglass barrier in-between.

A video of the same shared on social media showed factor workers kissing through the layer of glass, while others went on cheering them.

Mr Ma, the owner of the factory, said that the glass had been placed between participants to minimise risk of infection.

Ma's reason for holding the contest was to ensure that every worker in the factory stays "happy". He said, "Some of the participants were actually married couples who both work in the factory. This pandemic has made everyone very tense. They haven't been able to relax, and that might cause mistakes in the production process."

However, such an activity drew strong criticisms on social media, with people heavily coming down of the factory for allowing people to be this close even after Wuhan had become the epicentre of coronavirus where the virus was first detected.