About

Dancing Chinese Waiters, also known as Chinese Waiters Dancing, refers to a series of viral videos from TikTok showing a group of male Chinese waiters standing in a line and dancing to the song "Carry the Gun and Let Go of the Sheep" by Half Ton Brother. The dance involves walking forward, pointing a finger and shimmying one's hips and head (among other moves). Although many on TikTok called them waiters because they were shown dancing in a restaurant while wearing all black, the men are instead a popular dance group in China called the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group. The group is viral on the app Douyin (China's TikTok). In early 2024, western TikTokers performed the dance, replicating the original video.

Origin

The videos that later became known as the Dancing Chinese Waiters were originally posted to Douyin^[1][2] on November 24th, 2021, by members of the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group. The videos received roughly 1.8 million likes and 2 million likes, respectively, over three years.

In the videos, the men are dancing to the song "扛過槍 放過羊 (DJ偉然 Remix)" by 半吨兄弟.^[3] In English, the song is called "Carry the Gun and Let Go of the Sheep" by Half Ton Brother.

On February 28th, 2024, TikToker^[4][5] @hai.us.uk reposted two videos of the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group dancing to the song. The first (in which they look like waiters) received over 869,600 likes in one month (shown below, left). The second (in which a boy is also dancing with them) received over 638,400 likes in a month (shown below, right).

Spread

A month later, on March 23rd, 2024, TikToker^[6] @itskyleabdullah posted a video in which he joked about "I refuse to do a dance trend" only to then replicate the dance from the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group, gaining over 833,100 plays and 90,300 likes in 18 days (shown below, left).

On March 25th, 2024, TikToker^[7] @zihanwan003 added to the trend, joking about someone saying to him "u have no rizz," receiving over 74,700 plays an 8,600 likes in 16 days (shown below, right).

Increasingly viral iterations of the trend persisted, like a video posted by TikToker^[8] @oskar_the_ostrich on March 27th, 2024, earning over 924,100 plays and 117,900 likes in two weeks (shown below, left).

On April 2nd, 2024, TikToker^[9] @majr_dance posted a video doing the dance with friends, gaining over 7.8 million plays and 713,900 likes in eight days (shown below, right).

@majr_dance posted multiple viral TikToks^[10][11] performing the dance going into April 2024. His videos were then reposted to Douyin,^[12] gaining over 1 million likes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References