Samsung Staff Kowtowing to China Partners Turned Viral for all The Wrong Reasons

It’s not a good time to be a Samsung executive now.

With Samsung Galaxy Note 7 only in the market for about one month before it was discontinued, and with a current loss of over USD$5 billion, with a projected additional USd$3.1 billion loss that will continue until March 2017, the Korea giant isn’t betting to give lots of bonus, if any, to their staff this year.

And now, they’re facing yet another problem: a social media backlash after this image was circulated online.

Apparently, this image of Samsung staff kowtowing was performed in a dealers’ meeting in Shijiazhuang, Hebei. The staff were thanking the audience, primarily Chinese distributors (companies who buy the phones and sell them to retailer outlets) for continuing to place new orders for their phones despite the issues faced by them now.

Netizens were irate because in the Chinese culture, kowtowing is considered something very serious, as though a final plead, while in the Korea culture, it is used mainly as a form of respect. As these are allegedly Chinese staff, people wondered whether they were forced to kowtow.

According to Shanghaiist, a Samsung spokesperson has come out to say that no one was forced to kowtow, and because they were touched by their Korean colleagues’ gesture, they did it on their own account.

But netizens aren’t happy because of this.

So, were they really being forced to kowtow? You decide.

Featured Image: shanghaiist.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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