Dancing Chinese Waiters — Group of Chinese men in black shirts dancing in a line inside a restaurant

Dancing Chinese Waiters

2021viral videoclassic

Published August 12, 2026

Dancing Chinese Waiters is a viral TikTok trend from 2024 featuring a Chinese dance troupe performing a synchronized routine while dressed in all black, which many viewers mistook for restaurant staff. The clips originated on Douyin in 2021 before being reposted and imitated worldwide.

tiktok dance trends dance memes chinese origin memes global crossover memes participatory video memes

Overview

Dancing Chinese Waiters is a viral dance trend built around clips of a Chinese male dance troupe performing a synchronized routine in matching all-black outfits1. Because they filmed inside a restaurant setting, English-speaking TikTok viewers assumed the men were waiters on a break, and the nickname stuck even though the performers are the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group, a popular act on Douyin2.

The routine itself involves walking forward in formation, pointing a finger, and shimmying the hips and head in time with the beat1. The soundtrack is a remix of "扛過槍 放過羊" by Half Ton Brother, translated as "Carry the Gun and Let Go of the Sheep"3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Douyin (source), TikTok (viral spread)
Creator
Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group
Date
2021

The two source clips were first posted to Douyin on November 24th, 2021, by the Post-80s Dream-chasing Men's Group1. Over the following three years, the videos pulled in roughly 1.8 million and 2 million likes on the Chinese platform1.

The song powering the routine, "扛過槍 放過羊 (DJ偉然 Remix)," is credited to 半吨兄弟, or Half Ton Brother in English (translated from Mandarin)3. The men wore matching black shirts inside a restaurant, which is what later fueled the "waiters" misreading once the clips crossed over to Western audiences.

How It Spread

The trend jumped to English-speaking TikTok on February 28th, 2024, when TikToker @hai.us.uk reposted two of the original Douyin clips4. The first repost pulled in more than 869,600 likes in a month, while a second version featuring a young boy dancing alongside the men picked up over 638,400 likes in the same window4.

Within weeks, imitations took over the For You page. On March 23rd, 2024, TikToker @itskyleabdullah posted a bit joking "I refuse to do a dance trend" before launching into the routine, racking up over 833,100 plays in 18 days5. Two days later, @zihanwan003 riffed on the "u have no rizz" line while doing the moves, and by March 27th @oskar_the_ostrich's version had crossed 924,100 plays in two weeks6.

The biggest single hit came from TikToker @majr_dance, who posted a group version with friends on April 2nd, 2024, that pulled in over 7.8 million plays and 713,900 likes in eight days7. His follow-up TikToks were then reposted back to Douyin, where they picked up more than 1 million likes and closed the loop between the two platforms2.

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How to Use This Meme

Creators typically film the routine in a line of three or more people, wearing matching dark outfits to nod to the original waiter look. The common convention is to sync the finger point and hip shimmy to the drop in the Half Ton Brother remix, often opening with a scripted caption or fake-out line before the group breaks into the dance.

Frequently Asked Questions