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He Zhongxing was by far one of the most divisive characters on the show Boys Planet 2. But he didn’t just appear out of nowhere— there are 8 years’ worth of dominoes that led him all the way to this Mnet survival show. From the child idol industry, lawsuits to live house bars, all the different threads of Zhongxing’s life weave together to form a nuanced portrait of a Sexy and Hot artist who was once a 14 year old boy from Chongqing that wanted to be an idol. A star, like the character in his name.
Table of Contents: (clickable!)
☆ SEXY and HOT ☆
☆ A Starry Is Born ☆
☆ Child Idol Speedrun Any% ☆
☆ Singing and Dancing At The Club ☆
☆ Xi-jie Exposes All (Maybe Too Much) ☆
☆ The Free Marketplace Of Fanservice ☆
☆ If It Looks Like A Duck, Swims Like A Duck, And Quacks Like A Duck… ☆
☆ Shining Forever ☆
☆ SEXY and HOT ☆
He Zhongxing rose to prominence as a Chinese contestant on the 2025 Mnet survival show Boys Planet 2 (B2P) and was known for his catchphrase on the show, “sexy and hot, shining forever.” According to him, the show staff wanted him to say the phrase “sexy and hot” for his self introduction, and it stuck. Sexy became his image on the show as he performed sexy concepts such as Kill The Romeo, his nickname amongst the Chinese fanbase, and even part of his allure for new fans. He is tall and slender with long blonde hair, incurable chuunibyou and an aloofness that kpop audiences may not be used to, but find themselves drawn to anyway. He can’t help it, he’s a leo!
However, overshadowing his stage performances on the show are his frustrations and conflicts with teammates and production staff. Most of these edited to present him being short-tempered, agitated by the pressure of the show and its performances. While Zhongxing is quite reserved and a self-described loner, under the stressful conditions of the show, he was being pushed to the brink. In episode 6, he made an attempt to leave the show during the HOT performance preparations amidst tensions with his teammates, but the production staff managed to keep him on the show until he was eliminated in episode 8.
He was by far one of the most divisive characters on the show, with some annoyed at how his frustrations took away from his teammates’ efforts, some finding his antics with the other B2P contestants like Sho or Hanwen amusing, and even those who fell in love with him through his performances. But Zhongxing didn’t just appear out of nowhere— the story of his life began back in 2017. There are 8 years’ worth of dominoes that led him all the way to Boys Planet 2 and this post will cover most of it to provide context and show a side of Zhongxing that you won’t see in the show.
As he appeared on the show, rumours started to spread in the English speaking fandom that he was signed under an abusive company CEO and that he was forced to perform as a minor in 18+ bars and nightclubs, which was the same general impression I was under. From the child idol industry, lawsuits to live house bars, the truth weaves all the different threads of Zhongxing’s life together to form a more nuanced portrait of him. Throughout my research while writing this post, I started to notice that Zhongxing was viewed differently by different audiences, particularly the Chinese B2P fanbase; the more I dug into it, the more it became clear that Zhongxing’s audience reception serves as a reflection of the audience’s moral and social values rather than Zhongxing the person.
At the end of the day, the Sexy and Hot Zhongxing we know today was once just a 14 year old boy from Chongqing who wanted to be an idol. A star, like the character in his name. He was just a boy.
☆ A Starry Is Born ☆
Disclaimer: Many of the links I’ve cited in this post are from Chinese sites with no English subtitles, but I’ve included relevant summaries or quotes in English. All English translations are done by me, so I apologize in advance if you catch a mistake. Also, I primarily use traditional Chinese so there may be inconsistencies between traditional and simplified Chinese though I tried to standardise everything in its original simplified Chinese.
To truly understand He Zhongxing, we must go back to where it began— his hometown of Chongqing.
The rest of this section will be a short biography of He Zhongxing’s early life, covering 2017-2023. I would not have been able to compile this post without my dear friend pungmul, who deserves the credit for digging up all this information, and I’m trying to encourage them to write their own post on the Yian Middle School lore because it goes deep. We were pulling at the roots of He Zhongxing’s lore so hard in this research that we found the craziest cpop idol mill pipeline from a random middle school in Chongqing all the way to the TF Entertainment conglomerate. But if the words TNT and INTO1 mean nothing to you— there is so much to this that it’s another deep dive altogether.
He Zhongxing has wanted to be an idol since he was a kid. Chongqing has a long history with opera and performance art; it’s the perfect environment for Zhongxing to hone his dancing and singing skills. But he also seemed to be inspired by Jpop idols as well, likely from internet exposure, eventually leading to Sho’s story about him singing a King & Prince song unprompted. Zhongxing is quite a weeb if his chuunibyou/middle-school syndrome isn’t obvious enough.
He attended a particular middle school in Chongqing called 育才中學, where he participated in school performances such as the School Arts Festival in 2017, alongside classmates who were TF Entertainment trainees. Outside of school, Zhongxing also attended an idol academy called TOPKING and released a dance cover under their channel.
First of all, the title is 13岁小清新皓皓，演绎最纯净的浪漫作品, Something New/13 year old fresh face Haohao stars in a performance of the purest romance, Something New. It’s kind of hard to translate the title accurately but there’s an emphasis on how new and innocent Zhongxing is, in a way that’s uncomfortable. The song lyrics include obvious allusions to sex, like I probably should wait, but I wanna let you go there / I wanna try something new, all night… But secondly, this music video doesn’t feel appropriate at all for a 13 year old. I believe his female dance partner is over 18 but she’s shown in her panties? And Zhongxing was shown waking up in bed and buttoning up his shirt?
I captured this screenshot that includes a comment someone left, saying, “aaaaah you’re still a child…”
Just keep the early sexualization in mind. Anyway, someone was paying close attention because not long after both of these videos came out, Zhongxing received a casting DM on Weibo from a Shanghainese company named 原际画/Original Plan Entertainment. Guess who the CEO is… A previous exec at TF Entertainment! This is a big deal. TF Entertainment is like the Johnny & Associates of China. Like SM Entertainment level big. Zhongxing probably knew that, which is why he signed the contract and flew the two and a half hours to Shanghai by himself where the promise of an illustrious idol career awaited.
☆ Child Idol Speedrun Any% ☆
So 易安中学/Yian Middle School isn’t a real middle school. In fact, this name is kind of ironic. As a concept, Yian Middle School is supposed to be a big pool of young trainees who are “students” with a graduation system; they perform at showcases and go through yearly “Summer Festivals” where fans vote for their favourites and the top 6 get to be in a special subunit called Yian Music Club… Hm. Funnily enough, AKB48, the legendary Japanese female idol group, has a similar rotational lineup with yearly elections, subunits and a graduation system… We’ll put a pin in AKB48 for now because they come up again later.
Zhongxing meets a fellow Chongqing-er amongst many in this wacky world of entertainment; Zhong Junyi, another aspiring idol who’s a year older than him (but they’re Chinese so a one year gap is whatever.) The two grow particularly close because the other trainees are even younger than they are and sort of under their care. Here’s a photo of Zhongxing, Junyi and the other trainees when they were filming content together to illustrate the point. (Junyi is the one in white and red, Zhongxing is the one wearing a blue shirt)
Zhongxing essentially speedruns the idol experience at YMS. Their Growth Program schedule pushed him to perform in 4 showcases in 4 months, basically equivalent to doing a survival show. Remember, he only had some idol academy dancing or singing training prior to this, unlike some others with longer dancing or singing experience, and these showcases involved cultural dances and even props. Plus he’s 14 years old. You can see through their online content that Zhongxing was growing visibly tired and even stressed during practice.
By mid 2018, Zhongxing and Junyi had mysteriously disappeared from YMS events and social media. Let’s guess why:
A. They were not receiving proper academic support and their environment was not conducive to studying. (Ironic for a group called Yian Middle School)
B. Their moms are filing a lawsuit against the company because they should return to Chongqing for better university prospects.
C. The CEO was allegedly taking them to bars and restaurants for drinking purposes and encouraged underage drinking.
D. All of the above.
Yes, it’s D! Turns out their contract is an insane ELEVEN YEAR LONG slave contract that their parents should’ve read the fine print for and this company is run by evil people. Zhongxing and Junyi returned to Chongqing while the lawsuit went on, only returning to court to testify for court proceedings. Their court case case was actually covered on state media with an angle on the domestic child idol industry.
It was not a clean split. It ended with the judges deciding that neither side could come to an agreement— Original Plan (O-Plan) actually won the case and when the case got appealed, they won the appeal and collected the contract termination fee from them (reduced from 150k RMB (21k USD) each to 45k for Junyi and 35k for Zhongxing). Thus, Zhongxing’s ties with Yian Middle School have been legally severed.
By the way, Zhongxing and Junyi (and two others who also filed lawsuits and left this company) got a lot of hate from this lawsuit, with a lot of YMS fans accusing them of lying to get away with underage drinking and escape their contract, which was the basis for those underage drinking/abusive CEO rumours. They also left comments on this video and on other forums about how these two getting bad grades are their own fault for not studying enough and being so hateful to two kids. I want everyone to look at these two 16 year olds sitting in the courtroom, Junyi on the left and Zhongxing (who buzzed his hair) on the right.
Either way, Zhongxing and Junyi seemed to have finished high school during this time. Junyi went on to join L.Tao Entertainment— yes, the company run by Tao from EXO, and appeared on 青春有你3/Youth With You 3 in 2021. It’s a trainwreck of a survival show but Junyi only makes it to 54th. Meanwhile, Zhongxing goes on 少年说唱企划/New Generation Hip Hop Project and does not even make it past the auditions.
I believe the two of them did go around and perform in more underground rap settings around this time, at least until Junyi tries his hand at being an idol again. He goes on Asia Super Young in 2023 and gets cancelled, and while I have to skip over the reasons, it’s worth further reading.[1]
Zhongxing himself keeps a low profile until 2023, when he finds a new job at a place at 优楽唱跳俱乐部/优楽 Singing and Dancing Club.
☆ Singing and Dancing At The Club ☆
After the Yian Middle School endeavour and following lawsuit, Zhongxing ends up performing at a bar franchise called 优楽唱跳俱乐部/Youle Singing and Dancing Club (SDC) around 2023.
In September, after Zhongxing was already eliminated from B2P, a Zhongxing fan posted in the Douban B2P discussion community to explain why Zhongxing started working at SDC. However, it’s quite long and I want to break down things they mentioned in different sections of this post as they come up. I’ve structured this post to include quotes and context when I bring it up but I’ve also added the original post + my translation in the footnotes if you want to read the full thing. I haven’t found any solid evidence to refute nor corroborate the things mentioned in this post so we’ll take it all with a grain of salt. [2]
According to this post, in 2023, Zhongxing was considering going on an unnamed survival show (one can only imagine) and needed to drum up some popularity beforehand by performing. He found SDC through videos of one of their top performers named Seven, who he would later work alongside. Seeing an opportunity, Zhongxing was able to sign a contract with the SDC some time in 2023.
However, Zhongxing was told on his birthday that he wasn’t going on whatever survival show it was, so he kept his head down and continued working at Singing and Dancing Club. We’ll return to the details of this Douban post in a later section. To corroborate these details, I was also able to find Zhongxing on their weekly schedules posted online from March 2024 to December 2024. This timeline puts an end to the rumour that he worked at bars underage, which I suspect was mixed up with the details from the lawsuit with the O-Plan CEO.
Zhongxing wasn’t slumming it at all— I estimate that I’ve only compiled 60% of his schedules from this period but he performed at least 64 times between May to December 2024 across three branches in Chengdu, Xian and Shenyang. In both June and November, he performed every night for two weeks in a row. It seems that management quite liked him or that he was popular because he performed at the main branch in Shenyang on Halloween and again for their Christmas celebration.
Breakdown of his schedule between May to December:
I wouldn’t classify this type of establishment as a nightclub (as it has no open dance floor, only a stage) but more similar to a bar or lounge with live performances. They have multiple locations across China but they operate the same way, with their popular performers travelling to perform at different branches. At the bar, there is a minimum spending and customers must order drinks, but otherwise, customers are encouraged to stay for the performances. It should also be noted that these types of 18+ bar establishments with live performances are not uncommon in China, with many of them flourishing post-COVID as alternative forms of entertainment. Here is a video from 2022 showing people lining up out the door to enter the Xian branch of SDC and how packed it was in there.
Review-like videos by customers on Douyin often function as a form of marketing for Chinese bars and restaurants, some of which may be undisclosed paid advertisements. Many of them feature very little of the bar’s beverages but focus on the selling point: the roster of primarily male performing artists. The franchise has its own entertainment agency, which handles signing prospective artists, usually with some pre-existing internet fanbase, providing them with some training and scheduling them into daily lineups at each location. These artists actually range from DJs, MCs, dancers, to underground rappers, which Zhongxing identified himself as. Here is an example of a recent poster outside the doors advertising a carnival-themed event featuring their top male performers. I’ve highlighted two guys, Yang木木/Yang Mumu and MC 宋明星/Song Mingxing, whom I will go into further detail in the following section.
Here is a closer look at one of the weekly schedules posted by staff with Zhongxing in the lineup. I’ve annotated three guys: Seven, the guy who Zhongxing was inspired by, Mumu and Song Mingxing. They are labelled as “annually contracted guests,” as opposed to Zhongxing who’s an “annually contracted artist.” I think it means they all have a contract at SDC through to the end of the year, but the “guests” are the big headliners.
These establishments rely on their rotation of performers to pull in crowds of regular customers, giving them incentive to build parasocial relationships between both performers and the fans. This business model is reminiscent of similar endeavours in the idol industry, the most prominent example being AKB48. We’re returning to the pin! AKB48’s concept began as an experiment to create an idol group with a “home theatre,” where fans could come see daily performances by rotational lineups in one theatre, as opposed to the traditional model of idol groups travelling to perform in outside venues. By creating a physical space for fans to visit, fans had easy access to the idols’ performances, their merchandise, and a space to meet other fans. Earlier this year on the r/AKB48 subreddit, someone posted the question, “Is it worth going to Japan to see akb48 theatre performance?” A fan answers, “If you’re a fan, it’s definitely worth it, as you’re in a cherished famous historical AKB48 venue…” Here’s what the Shenyang main branch of SDC looks like compared to the AKB48 theatre (in both 2012 and present). (SDC, AKB48 1, 2)
AKB48’s concept was an extremely successful endeavour and various aspects of their concept have been tried in other idol markets, such as their large and rotational lineup, using subunits, and their graduation system where members can graduate from the entire system. We have to look no further than Yian Middle School to see AKB48’s impact and ponder whether Zhongxing felt drawn to the familiar. Even Lee Soo Man of SM Entertainment has reportedly been inspired by them and his most successful attempt resulted in NCT and all their subunits. It seems that the owners of the Singing and Dancing Club franchise were inspired by these models to create a “home venue” and a rotational lineup of performers.
With a rotational lineup of performances, it allows for more flexible schedules and SDC has even experimented with creating subunits or duo performances by their artists. They do produce great results— SDC clips regularly go viral on Douyin, allowing many of their artists to build big online fanbases, like Seven, who has over 600k followers on Douyin, and some of them even have fansites or dedicated fans who post fancams of them. A lot of them also stream on Douyin, Zhongxing being one of them, and we’re starting to see that parasocial connection form between artist and fanbase, slowly resembling a typical idol fanbase.
☆ Xi-jie Exposes All (Maybe Too Much) ☆
However, this is not where the parallels between this type of bar establishment and the idol industry end. In my research into the Singing and Dancing Club, I discovered this manager named 李小希/希姐/Xi-jie, aka older sister Xi, who is in charge of marketing and “artist development” for SDC artists. She technically works for the artist management company rather than SDC itself, but is rumoured to be a shareholder of the SDC franchise. While Xi-jie works behind the scenes, she also loves posting, which reveals more about SDC’s recruitment and management practices than she may think. Here she is introducing herself in an old video.
We return back to two of the top performers at the Singing and Dancing Club, Yang木木/Yang Mumu (99’ liner, DJ) and MC 宋明星/Song Mingxing (00’ liner, MC). They seemed to have started performing as a duo (referred to as 木星/MuXing, which also means Jupiter) as billed in schedules starting from late 2023, though they had made their SDC debut individually before this point. (Song Mingxing left, Mumu on the right)
They were extremely popular individually, making it to “annually contracted guest” status, but also together for yaoi reasons and usually headlined on days they were slated to perform. By August 2024, they seemed to have taken a hiatus from performing, which was why Xi-jie decided to do a Douyin live to update their fans.
I took notes in English on a clip of her stream, but when I went back to download and screenshot some parts of it, it has now been taken down. Luckily, I found a fan-run Douyin account that reposted some of Xi-jie’s old behind the scenes videos at SDC, including some featuring Mumu where she brings up details that she later repeats in the Douyin livestream.
Xi-jie openly discusses her personal role in recruiting and managing both of MuXing, saying how she watched them from the first day when “nobody knew them.” According to this video, Xi-jie couldn’t sleep one night so she decided to look through her Wechat contacts, found Mumu in there, and thought, wow he’s really handsome. She texted him to ask if he was still working as a DJ, which makes me think they’ve met at some point before, and he responded quite quickly, so she recruited him to work at SDC. She says that she did everything personally from discussing his wages to arranging plane tickets and accommodation to preparing his contract, and the two do seem close. In her Douyin livestream, she repeats the same details about Mumu and talks about a “funny anecdote” where Mumu almost wrote his own name wrong when signing the contract.
Unlike the carefully constructed pipelines of the Kpop or Jpop idol industries that start at childhood, SDC has to recruit artists who are of age (drinking age in China is 18). They specialize in 網紅/internet celebrities, either recruiting artists who already have an internet presence or turning aspiring artists into internet celebrities. Their online and offline marketing posters often feature a follower count or notable associations (like previously joined survival shows) for each artist. He Zhongxing himself has been promoted as a New Generation Hip Hop Project contestant on the SDC posters before. Here is one such poster from when he and Zhong Junyi would occasionally perform together as the duo Starryone, and a still from one of their performances. On the poster, Zhong Junyi is promoted as a Youth With You 3 contestant with over 350,000 followers.
It seems that Xi-jie was personally recruiting at least some of the artists at SDC herself. However, many of these performers are still young (19-24) with internet-based followings that are enticed by the prospects of explosive fame and the buzz of a post-COVID live audience. A lot of them also lack knowledge and experience in the entertainment industry and/or nightlife scene, which makes them vulnerable to being unknowingly mistreated or tied up in contracts; now that’s something the idol industry can relate to.
Xi-jie’s content suggests that management for the artists under the SDC franchise is more similar to the idol industry than we may expect. In addition to recruitment, Xi-jie seems to have a lot of other management responsibilities. In her behind the scenes video, she’s shown sitting in the back of the club and taking performance notes while the artists are on stage. She talks about personally picking out clothes for the artists as well as sending feedback on their fashion in their group chat, so she’s also in charge of their styling to some extent. We see her accompanying two artists in a car going somewhere; it seems she usually accompanies the artists as a manager when they go to different locations. While in the car, she also shares that the other day, one of the other SDC artists called her for five hours to talk about their worries and she had listened patiently to reassure them. All of these responsibilities are usually split amongst specialized staff in the kpop world, but at smaller companies, this may not be so unthinkable. Girlboss Xi-jie is not only a recruiter, a performance director, a stylist, a manager, but also a therapist— what could go wrong?
In her August 2024 Douyin live, Xi-jie talks about finding the right angles for photoshopping Song Mingxing’s photos, how she thought he suited a more manly image and then pushed him to go to the gym more often. She’s their stylist— she also mentions that she got him to start wearing more revealing stage outfits. It makes sense that as a marketing staff, she would help build her artist’s brand image, but because she’s also their stylist and their manager, she can further exert pressure on Song Mingxing to go to the gym and control what he wears on stage. Is giving this much power over an artist to one person a good idea? Xi-jie goes on to complain that kids born after 2000 (gen Z) don’t “listen well” to her, mainly directed at MuXing, and that she has to keep asking them every day if they went to the gym. From the way she talks about artist management, it seems like she feels she’s managing a bunch of children and has to take a micromanaging approach.
Xi-jie’s annoyance at MuXing “not listening well” to her direction while crediting herself personally for their success in her Douyin live takes on an uglier shape when further investigation reveals that MuXing were on hiatus because they were filing contract termination lawsuits with SDC, amidst rumours on social media that they were also being bullied by other performers they worked with closely. As of late 2025, Mumu has left SDC but Song Mingxing is still headlining shows today, presumably having come to some terms with SDC. With this context, Xi-jie proudly saying, “I think I want the best for them more than the two of them do,” leaves a sour taste.
She also posted this note on Douyin more recently, which I think is shade at Mumu for leaving:
Yes, she talked like this in the now deleted livestream clip, even though the tone is hard to translate. Yes, she is lowkey insane. This type of power-tripping management staff is sadly common in the Chinese entertainment industry— look no further than the Original Plan CEO amongst other horror stories. It’s not an easy job; I empathize with the fact that Xi-jie seems to be overloaded with responsibilities and even takes on the emotional labour of being her artists’ therapists, and to her credit, she does put the work in. But I think she was given too much power over these guys and believed that she “made” them, and she took it as a personal betrayal when they wanted to leave SDC, hence the rant.
Although there is no evidence to conclude that Zhongxing was mistreated while working at SDC, it’s worth noting that he was actively working there at the same time as MuXing and he definitely would’ve known Xi-jie. For all we know, she could’ve been the one writing the Weibo post glazing Zhongxing for B2P on the company account. She didn’t seem to manage him closely, but Zhongxing isn’t the type that needs much managing anyway, given his entertainment experience and independent personality.
In the Douban post [2] mentioned previously, the poster (OP) says Zhongxing was “fooled” into signing a contract to work at SDC, then also contradictorily notes that the boss knew all about Zhongxing’s situation. From what they describe, it seems Zhongxing had seen what SDC is about, contacted them first, and the boss was understanding of his plans. In my own opinion, given the context of Zhongxing having sued a previous boss for an unfair contract, I think he knew what he was signing up for and was okay with that. Plus he was an “annual contracted artist” for all of 2024, which seems to imply that after his initial contract in 2023, he chose to sign an annual contract for 2024.
Another point brought up in the Douban post is that Zhongxing didn’t get paid a lot to work at SDC and relied mainly on Douyin streaming for income, which is what most of the SDC artists do outside of performing there. I wonder if there’s a feedback loop here of internet celebrities working at SDC and bringing SDC more exposure while trying to grow their individual online following on low wages and surviving mainly off of Douyin streaming… Whether this is the brainchild of the marketing genius Xi-jie or an unintended side effect of this business model, I’m sure Xi-jie is well aware of it.
☆ The Free Marketplace Of Fanservice ☆
While backstage practices at SDC bear a lot of similarities to traditional idol industries, their artists’ actual performances and relationships with fans start to differ. The Douban post references the two major concerns that Chinese people seem to have with Zhongxing working at SDC in the first place: fanservice and stripping. We’ll get into why they’re concerned about those things later, but let’s take a look at what Zhongxing was doing at SDC.
While AKB48 theatre performances conclude with handshake/high-five events where fans get brief and boundary-enforced interactions with their idols, SDC artists seem to be encouraged to interact with their audience and fans however they want. A viral Douyin fancam of Seven, yes the Seven that led Zhongxing to SDC, shows him serenading a girl in the front row of the audience, leaning in and grabbing her by the back of her neck. Unlike traditional idol industries with extremely strict boundaries and norms around fanservice, especially physically, SDC is an 18+ bar establishment that doesn’t have to abide by those norms.
They’re not kissing but I know it looks like it lol.
SDC doesn’t seem to have any requirements about having to do fanservice. While the customers may be there to see a specific artist or interested in up close interactions, they are way less intense than the typical kpop idol fan that we may be used to. Even though they certainly know that fanservice moments go viral on Douyin, their audience is largely normal bar-goers and some regular fans, which eases the pressure and lets the artists lean into it as much as they want to. So… could this be considered (more) ethical fanservice? The larger degree of agency offered to SDC artists means they can engage in the fanservice on their own terms, in contrast to kpop idols whose fanbases have more expectations in terms of fanservice, both in frequency and form. For example, the sketchbooks with questions or messages, or getting your idol to complete your heart; that sort of stuff doesn’t happen at SDC.
While there are many videos of SDC artists getting up close and personal with female audience members, the videos of Zhongxing doing fanservice with female customers are all quite tame. He mainly keeps it to shooting hearts and the most egregious fanservice example I could find was a clip where he dances to the it’s time to go to bed song and holds a female audience member’s hand.
According to the big Douban post [2] Zhongxing would only “sing and dance normally,” and keeps a respectful distance between his fans both on and off the stage. Zhongxing himself has also said before that he never gives out his Wechat to girls who approach him (refer to link 1 in the Douban post footnote.)
So if doing too much fanservice isn’t the main issue with Zhongxing, what is? Well, there’s this Chinese slang, 擦边/cabian, that refers to stripping or taking off one’s clothes usually in an online context and funnily enough, the online definition I used to reference also describes this as a form of softcore pornography. Cabian doesn’t necessarily mean Magic Mike style strip teasing to a routine, but more like ripping off your shirt mid-performance or undoing all your shirt buttons. If you search up SDC on Douyin, this is what you’ll see:
While fanservice videos of SDC artists are popular, the most viral performance SDC videos involve the male performers ripping off their shirts, showing off their physique and dancing… provocatively. The official Douyin pages of various SDC branches include clips of their artists shirtless in their own promotional videos; it’s a selling point for them. Here is another recent fancam example from May of this year, featuring a whole lineup of men and garnering 391k views. Notably, strip clubs are banned in China; so this is the closest you’re gonna get to the strip club experience.
Many if not all of the male artists at SDC incorporate taking off their shirts into their routines and obviously, Zhongxing is no exception. The Douban post [2] claims that Zhongxing started off only dancing to boy group dances and did not initially engage in cabian/stripping. From the 2023 fancams that I’ve seen, Zhongxing performed in a variety of different outfits and styles, sometimes quite buttoned up, sometimes wearing normal clothes, and sometimes very shirtless.
Sources: 1, 2, 3
He gets a chest tattoo at some point in 2024 and not slutshaming but what’s the point of a chest tattoo if you can’t show it off? Zhongxing also seems to get more comfortable with his general shirtlesslessness because he also streamed on Douyin without a shirt on.
He didn’t have a strip tease routine or anything salacious in his performances. The most sexually explicit thing I’ve seen him do is cover Ggum by Yeonjun and do the hip thrusts. The Douban post seems to imply that Zhongxing was under some pressure to start stripping, as they write, “about the stripping and fanservice, it’s part of the expectations at the establishment, nobody will only appreciate your dancing at that place.” But again, I think Zhongxing knew what he was getting into at SDC and was fine with the cabian aspect of the job— it wouldn’t have been a surprise.
I would be doing Xi-jie a disservice if I didn’t also include her discussion on the topic of cabian/stripping as well. In one of her behind the scenes videos, she’s asked about cabian and she does point out that it’s one of the surefire ways to blow up online for SDC artists. Xi-jie tells her artists that it’s okay to do cabian from time to time but warns them against making it their main draw— then says that the guys who do make it their main draw are doing it by their own volition and that they’re ungovernable.
I do believe that while the brilliant Xi-jie knows the power of cabian and would have no qualms about pushing her artists to do it, she’s also savvy enough to know that it’s not a reliable way to maintain an audience. Given the level of agency SDC artists seem to have regarding fanservice, I think they also engage in cabian on their own terms. The Douban post OP has a point about the expectation of cabian at SDC based on their social media presence, as well as the potential pressure for their artists/Zhongxing to do it, such as Xi-jie pressuring Song Mingxing to work on his physique, but Xi-jie herself claims to discourage overdoing it. The thing about working with unverifiable second-hand information is that we’ll have to take both Douban post OP and Xi-jie’s words with a grain of salt; it’s possible both of their perspectives are true. There’s a big gray area here since Zhongxing hasn’t spoken out about his experience with cabian. Whether defending or attacking Zhongxing, it’s undeniable that he was engaging with cabian at SDC and it remains a point of contention— we will get into why it’s a big deal in the next section.
Although Zhongxing did get a small fanbase out of his time at Yian Middle School, the ensuing lawsuit and years that passed between then and 2023 destroyed a lot of it; most of the Chinese B2P fanbase actually know little about his time at YMS or the lawsuit. However, Zhongxing did start to gain a small following while working at SDC and gained a few fansite-like fans who would post clips and videos from his sets. Amongst the flood of Zhongxing videos from his time at SDC, a few of them were dug up and reposted by new B2P fans discovering He Zhongxing for the first time. I came across one such clip on Instagram reels that was reposted by a Korean Zhongxing fan. (Based on the watermark, OP is @小凡凡凡煩 on Weibo)
It’s a standard Douyin fancam clip you’d see from any SDC artist or even Zhongxing, less than 20 seconds of Zhongxing wearing cat ears, his jacket open to show his bare torso, and just being cute. What intrigued me was not the content but rather the comments on the video in various languages, expressing different opinions on Zhongxing based on nationality. I captured a handful of comments on the Instagram video on October 19th (most comments were left 6-9 weeks beforehand, when Zhongxing was still on the show) and translated them for analysis.
The English comments are relatively lighthearted or misguided, with one person poking fun about Zhongxing and Hanwen’s “internet footprint.” That’s also what I wanted to write about— the international (the wider English-speaking fanbase) perception that pre-B2P clips of these two from performances/previous jobs are embarrassing or even shameful because they’re dancing provocatively or acting cute on stage. Watching a clip of Zhongxing actively working, which he did sometimes for two weeks in a row, and calling him “unemployed” exemplifies how little value people assign to entertainment work. The comment about how it’s “so sad he forced him to do this” seems to be based in the “Zhongxing’s abusive CEO makes him work at bars” rumour, which we’ve clarified is not the case with Zhongxing’s work at SDC.
A broader trend I’ve noticed amongst Zhongxing’s fanbase is that his Korean fans who were first exposed to him through B2P can embrace his cool and reserved demeanor, his tall and slender looks, and most importantly, his branding as SEXY and his shirtless SDC videos. They actually kinda love it. However, Chinese audiences seem to view Zhongxing quite differently. Most of the comments are making fun of the moment where he snapped at Guo Zhen on B2P, asking Guo Zhen if he made a face at him during a tense argument. Other comments are worse.
But if you’re an international or Korean fan, you may be left feeling puzzled. Sure, Zhongxing had his moments on B2P, but nothing that would warrant a torrent of hate like this. A Korean fan even points out in the top comment, “why don’t Chinese unnies like He Zhongxing…??”
That’s what inspired me to embark on this whole project. I want to answer that question and we must do that by understanding Chinese societal norms and the Chinese perception of sex work. But if you want the short answer, look no further than the rhetorical comment, “who on earth likes a duck?”
☆ If It Looks Like A Duck, Swims Like A Duck, And Quacks Like A Duck… ☆
In Chinese slang, 雞/chicken is used to refer to female sex workers, originating from a homonym for female prostitute. While it’s not inherently derogatory, the stigma around sex work means it is still used in a degrading manner and the comparison of women to livestock is obviously problematic. 鴨/duck is the male counterpart— if you refer back to the earlier screenshot of comments on He Zhongxing’s video, someone outright refers to him as one. So what about this video makes him a duck? Where does this disgust come from? Why would He Zhongxing being a duck mean that nobody could like him?
Let’s examine the Chinese stigma against sex work in closer detail. This is the boring part with no pictures but I’ll try to throw a few in.
While homosexuality is decriminalized in China, many LGBTQ+ rights and protections like same-sex marriage and adoption rights are only a dream for queer people in China. Prominent LGBTQ+ activists and organizations are subject to the same treatment as other organizations lobbying too hard for political change— being shut down, silenced, or even disappeared. However, broader Chinese society is inflicted with a milder, more passive form of homophobia. The pressure is placed on maintaining heteronormative status quo, with the traditional expectation of marriage, children and continuing the family lineage; queerness is incompatible with these values under the Chinese societal framework. With the proliferation of the internet and accessibility to queer media, younger generations of Chinese people are generally becoming more accepting of homosexuality.
However, even as Chinese society becomes more open minded towards queerness and sex, sex work is still seen as taboo. As researchers studying Chinese male college student sex workers writes, “sexual behavior was once considered legitimate only within marriage, then sex in relationships, and more recently, one-night-stands and hookups, are all gradually becoming more socially acceptable, but commercial sex is still highly stigmatized and deemed unethical by the society for both the sex workers and the clients.” (Tang and Fang, 2023)
Since 1992, the Chinese government’s position is that prostitution is “one of the “六害/six vices” that “严重毒害社会风气/seriously poison social mores” and “扰乱社会治安/disturb social order.” In addition, the government frames female sex workers “not as victims but as “morally decadent individuals” and “违法犯罪分子/illegal criminals.” (Choi and Lai, 2021) Regardless of the average Chinese person’s exposure to sex work in real life, the labelling of prostitution as a national vice and sex workers as immoral and criminal people has deeply coloured the societal perception of sex work. I racked my mind to think of any Chinese movies I’ve watched that tackle sex work and came up empty except for Lust, Caution (2007), which is the closest you’ll get but it’s not exactly sex work. Major dubcon warning if you want to watch the movie though.
Current academic literature focuses on sex work as under the paradigm of labour. We must isolate sex work from its moral and social stigma to understand that engaging in sex work is not an inherently bad moral decision. Sex work is a legitimate form of labour and has its own market, consumers and workers as does any industry. This perspective prioritizes the agency of sex workers and those who choose to enter the industry on their own terms, as supported by NGOs, academia and sex workers themselves, but in Chinese society, sex work is still seen as a moral failing or at best, an exploitative and coercive industry. In a study on female Chinese sex workers, many cited “poverty, drug use, debts, medical costs and familial financial needs,” as reasons they entered the industry rather than “personal advancement and freedom.” There is truth to the exploitative nature of the sex industry, especially for lower-class women who engage in it, but the social stigma that sex workers face prevents them from self-advocacy and gaining more agency. As a result of societal stigma, they carry a lot of shame around their work, referring to it as “这个邪事/this abhorrent thing”, “丢人现眼的事/this face-losing job” or “没面子的事/this shameful job,” as well as noting that the people around them treated them like “nothing” or “not even a human being.” (Choi and Lai, 2021) The overwhelming stigma of sex work not only impacts how they are shunned by other people but also becomes internalized shame and an isolating lifestyle.
But back to He Zhongxing. A college-aged middle class man doesn’t fall into the stereotypical view of a Chinese sex worker as a poor, desperate, immoral woman— but that doesn’t mean college-aged middle class Chinese men aren’t engaging in sex work. There has been a recent surge in research into the college-aged Chinese male sex worker demographic and it reveals the differences in male and female sex work, from the gateway into the industry, their motivations and the way they conduct their work. A study on this topic notes that “in most cases, male student sex workers were enticed by clients seeking commercial sex or intermediaries on the internet,” rather than actively seeking out the sex work industry. While most of them cited “material benefits” as their primary motivation, “they were not doing it for livelihoods but more for fulfilling their consumption desires,” as an extra source of income. (Tang and Fang, 2023) Unlike women entering sex work, this demographic of men engage in sex work not out of necessity but rather voluntarily. Though this demographic of male sex workers have more agency in the industry, it also lends more to the Chinese perception that sex work is a moral failing when they choose to participate rather than participating out of financial necessity to in the case of many women.
Logan writes in Economics, Sexuality, and Male Sex Work, “then and now, the primary buyers and sellers of male sexual services have been men. As such, male sex work has always carried the added stigma of homosexuality, causing male sex to be socially distinct from the more widely practiced female sex work.” (2017) Unlike female sex workers, most male sex workers have to face the stigma of homosexuality on top of sex work— regardless of how they identify their sexual orientation outside of work, engaging in sex with men puts these sex workers in the crosshairs of homophobia. Chinese male sex workers manage this by concealing their identity, with the mentality that “as long as others do not find out, they would not need to bare those stigmas in public.” (Tang and Fang, 2023) Twitter has become the popular social media in China for the sex industry as they are not subject to Chinese censorship; some Chinese male sex workers start as pornographers on Twitter before engaging in commercial sex, and for some of them, it was their gateway into the industry. While Chinese male sex workers can hide their work online and mask their identity in public, they must still bear the private burden of internalized shame around both homosexuality and sex work.
However, the college-aged Chinese male sex worker may not only engage with male clients; a growing number take female clients exclusively or in addition to male clientele. There is a developing female clientele for male sex work in China, with some seeking “direct sexual transactions,” while others, mainly younger women, also look for “companionship and intimacy.” Research into the female clientele in the sex industry is still developing but many are drawn to the “boyfriend experience” that offers both companionship through dates and sexual transactions, in contrast to male clients. Current literature suggests that this new form of sex work aimed at women “reduce the moral pressure and stigmas associated with commercial sex in China,” allowing them to manage the stigma of engaging in sex work as a buyer. (Tang and Fang, 2023) The popularity of the boyfriend experience reflects how male sex work is changing in China; the introduction of parasocial or emotional attachment into sex work relationships, the growing female clientele, and the expansion into new niches.
A notable anecdote from Tang and Fang’s article, Transactional Desire: Exploring Male Student Sex Workers in China:
The parallels in this male sex worker’s anecdote and He Zhongxing’s history of being brought to bars by his CEO and underage drinking is almost eerie— and yet the way Chinese fans view Zhongxing is starting to make sense, right?
This isn’t exactly an uncommon story— the nightlife scene is the one of the only places in tightly monitored and controlled Chinese society where sex work can be conducted offline, and the intersection of sex work and bars/clubs means close association to the nightlife scene are looked down upon. As sex work industries in China has expanded rapidly, such as through internet-based forms like camming, the nightlife scene has recently thrived in the grey area of the service and sex work industries; from karaoke lounges, hostess bars to high-end bars that target wealthier clientele.
A SDC customer writes in their review, “if you want to see this stuff, just go find some 模子, they say they’re different from 模子, but they’re act more 模子 than actual 模子.” The term 模子/mozi or 模子哥/mozige (male) is derived from the word 模特/model, and has now evolved to describe a type of male karaoke lounge host.
The karaoke lounge host/hostess model originated in Japan but is now one of the more visible forms of sex work in China for both male and female sex workers. Typically, one or multiple host(s)/hostess(es) will accompany their client(s) at a karaoke lounge room and drink and play games with them, earning commission based on the alcohol and food that clients order. Hosts/hostesses are expected to be warm, make conversation and allow for a certain level of touching or physical contact. However, there is a distinct difference between a mozi and a duck/male sex worker— mozi do not usually engage in direct sexual services with their clients, though there is a grey area for that. This is a (PG13+) movie clip that depicts a typical karaoke lounge hostess experience in China, at least as perceived in the media. I’ve included another photo below from a karaoke lounge hostess in Beijing that shows the reality of the work, when all available hostesses are herded into a room of fresh clients and the clients pick out the hostesses they want to hire for the night. (This was posted as part of this establishment's marketing.) Kind of demoralizing.
The 模子/mozi is an example of the way male sex work has developed niches for female clients by focusing on companionship rather than sexual transaction and hiding within plain view in the nightlife scene. However, the reality of being a mozi is not as glamorous as it may seem. Many of these mozi are college-educated young men who are unable to find another job or desperate to escape the harsh working life in China and rely on tips, regulars and commissions to survive. On days that they don’t get hired, they could even lose money by the end of the day; many of them get their daily nutrition by picking at overpriced fruit platters ordered by clients, enough that it’s become a common term used amongst mozi, 果盤男孩/fruit basket boy. For more reading on this topic, this Chinese article on mozi that includes many personal stories from mozi themselves that they share on social media. It also digs into the primarily female responses to their stories and how freely they comment on the lives and appearances of these mozi, feeling entitled to treat them the same way that their female clients do. It seems both Chinese women and men view sex workers under the same dehumanizing societal stigma of sex work regardless of gender; I’ve included an example of a mozi diary post from the article.
In addition to the disgruntled SDC customer’s complaint that the DJs and MCs lack talent to the point where potential customers are better off seeing a mozi, they also point out that SDC tries to differentiate themselves from mozi but ultimately act more like mozi than actual mozi. While I disagree because these two occupations are fundamentally different, what is SDC other than a gimmicky host bar at first glance? In a society where strip clubs are banned, the nightlife scene is “dirty,” and everyone knows what karaoke lounge hosts do, a bar that openly advertises men stripping themselves and engaging in heavy fanservice with female audiences easily lends itself to comparisons to mozi.
To bring it back to He Zhongxing, we can re-examine those comments on his Instagram reel with new context.
Comments like “get out of my reels” and “vomit” are just scratching the surface of the Chinese fanbase’s disgust at He Zhongxing. “Can you wear your clothes” and “nobody wants to see your ribs” are more pointed at his brazen sexuality and comfortability with being shirtless, plus a little bodyshaming. Remember, strip clubs are banned in China and sexual repression is the default— he might as well be fully naked to them. Displays of open sexuality can only mean sexual deviancy to certain swaths of Chinese netizens; if Zhongxing was doing yaoi fanservice (the Chinese term being 賣腐/selling tofu), or doing physical fanservice with a lot of girls, he would’ve been dragged for those things as well.
To me, what Zhongxing does as a performer on the SDC stage is miles away from the real life of a mozi or an actual duck/male sex worker; there is no evidence to suggest Zhongxing has ever engaged in sex work. In the Douban post [2], OP makes a point to differentiate this as well, by writing, “everyone can scold him for the stripping but he really wasn’t a duck.” Even Douban post OP finds themself reinforcing the sex work stigma— is stripping for an eager audience on his own terms something worth scolding in the first place?
As we’ve covered in this section, He Zhongxing’s association with the nightlife scene whether based on underage drinking rumours or his work at SDC has rendered him an immoral person in the eyes of Chinese society, a person who should be ashamed of himself; his lack of shame around his work has only made them hate him more. While we can conceptualize sex work as both an exploitative industry but also a legitimate form of labour independent of morality, to Chinese society, there is no room for nuance. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck— then it must be a duck.
☆ Shining Forever ☆
I started this project to examine the difference in Korean, International and Chinese audiences’ perception of He Zhongxing, but it quickly spiraled into this gigantic project. Going into this, I was working with what most international fans knew about Zhongxing, which is nothing more than his B2P appearance and vague rumours about his life before B2P swirling around, mainly that he worked at a bar. Not only are those rumours blown up into something unrecognizable through an international game of telephone, the truth exposes a much bleaker reality that He Zhongxing lived.
In 2017, a 14 year old He Zhongxing had his first ever self introduction posted on the Yian Middle School account. (Fan reupload)
Zhongxing was just a boy from Chongqing that dreamed of being an idol. Before he’d even stepped into the idol world, he was already sexualized in a dance cover and he was only 16 by the time his contract lawsuit concluded. By 18, he’d already tumbled through the idol industry machine and came out the other side with nothing but trauma. Finally able to explore music and perform on his own terms, working at SDC was Zhongxing’s second chance— but it was an experience that would ironically prevent him from being an idol again.
This is probably my favourite Zhongxing photo that I’ve come across in my research. A customer at SDC took this candid shot of him before going up on stage, and I think it’s a beautifully raw photo of a normal guy, not an idol or a mozi but existing somewhere in the grey area, just standing around at his workplace.
Diving into Zhongxing’s experience in the Chinese child idol industry reveals how deeply embedded idol industry pipelines are, just as they are in kpop and jpop; he wouldn’t have been on the radar of big Shanghainese entertainment companies if he didn’t happen to attend the same random middle school in Chongqing as other TF Entertainment trainees. Zhongxing’s story is also quintessentially Chinese: there is a long Chinese history of internal migration from rural or smaller urban centers to larger industrious urban cities along the coast, especially undertaken by children. From restrictive slave contracts, the CEO’s abuse of power, encouraging underage drinking, falling behind on education— 14 year old Zhongxing was failed by the adults who were supposed to care for him when he moved across the country alone.
Zhongxing’s time at the Youle Singing and Dancing Club and further insight into the modern adult entertainment industry in China offers interesting parallels to the idol industry practices. The internet and social media has become the main marketplace for entertainment in China; Zhongxing was casted by O-Plan via Weibo and he found SDC through social media as well. Both idols and SDC artists go through singing and dancing training, build their own image and stage persona, and even engage in similar fanservice and gain idol-like fanbases— the main difference between them is just their age. Both management structures seem to attract those who thrive on control over these young boys and both fanbases feed heavily into parasocialism between artist and audience. Did the Youle Singing and Dancing Club purposely build their business model on the back of the idol industry? Or is this the natural outcome of every entertainment industry niche that profits off of young artists who want to perform and their parasocial fans? I wonder what Xi-jie would have to say about this.
The examination of Chinese attitudes towards sex work is crucial in understanding not only the appeal of entertainment niches like SDC or mozi but also the wider perception and disdain of these industries. We may be used to western concepts of overt sexual displays such as strip clubs, as presented in popular media, but in China, stringent moral codes dictate the way people interact with sexuality, especially in public display. Sex work opposes the traditional Chinese values of marriage and family but also becomes criminal, isolating those in the industry from society. Sharing the market of young heterosexual women and the platforms of social media is now forcing male sex work industry and male idol industry closer in proximity than before; they may even start influencing each other, resulting in a franchise such as Youle Singing and Dancing Club. While most of Chinese society are morally opposed to sex work, more entertainment niches are growing in this grey area where women are gaining more agency to explore sexuality and intimacy.
I wanted to go more into Zhongxing’s experiences in Yian Middle School and how it affected his experiences on B2P, but that would turn this into a whole other post. Having seen 14 year old Zhongxing being scolded and having a minor breakdown on camera during dance practice makes his frustrations during B2P (particularly the sticker incident and the hot breakdown) more heartbreaking in retrospect. His experiences of being tossed around in the idol system makes his decision not to appear on Home Race and instead pivot back into rap by going on Show Me The Money with his pal Zhong Junyi (the blonde guy next to him in the video) more understandable.
It’s honestly beautiful that the two of them are still friends and pursuing music careers together. Look at them as kids and them performing together post Zhongxing B2P elimination.
By writing this long post/thesis, I wanted to present the more human side of He Zhongxing, why he is the way he is and why many of the Chinese B2P trainees defend him whenever they can. He’s just a guy with a dream that’s been broken by the system that failed him, a story shared by many other Chinese B2P guys. I also hope that by presenting Chinese attitudes towards sex work as context for why he’s widely disliked amongst the Chinese fanbase, international fans can give him more grace rather than pile onto the hate and misperception of him, even if unintentional. I’m basically doing what Douban post OP was also trying to do but my post is 10x longer lol.
I want to give another shout out to my amazing friend and collaborator pungmul for helping me sift through Douban posts, trawl through Douyin pages, as well as editing and providing feedback for this post. I could not have completed this without your support (listening to my malignant moaning), and I look forward to your own write ups very soon!
When Zhongxing got eliminated from B2P, he made a post on Instagram with a Korean caption about how he saw himself with black hair again and it reminded him of when he had black hair at 14 years old. From the caption and the Chinese comment he also left, it feels like this is an ending of another Zhongxing era and a goodbye to the idol that he could’ve been and tried to be. But as Zhongxing says himself, he can’t live in the past anymore. Just because he’s not an idol now, doesn’t mean he can’t still be a star— one that shines forever.
“I’ve walked on this road for 8 years, I can’t live in the past, but I’ll let you guys see a brand new me, sexy and hot, shining forever.”
[1] Zhong Junyi has a lot of lore on his own. I’m not an expert so I’ll leave some links for your own reading, at least until I’ve convinced pungmul to do a write up on him. Here is a twitter thread that has receipts of the whole thing but it’s not a write up. If you know enough Chinese slang to navigate this Weibo masterpost about Asia Super Young contestants’ drama, please have at it because I don’t think even I can parse through some of this. [return]
[2] This is really long, so I added it as a footnote.
A Twitter user has also posted a machine-translated version of the post but the post has slang that I don’t think the machine could catch, so I did my own translation. First link at the top goes to another Douban post with a clip of an undated Zhongxing Douyin stream (seems to be during his time at SDC) talking about how he has always been a loner, he mostly hung out by himself at school and practiced dancing, he never let girls add him on Wechat and had no interest in dating at all. I’m also attaching the Weibo screenshot of the company behind SDC talking about Zhongxing in June when he appeared on B2P. It’s actually really nice and supportive, they talk about how he worked really hard when performing there and would stay late to practice every day after shows. The last link at the end goes to Weibo post that clarifies some rumours of Zhongxing being a bully in the Chinese fanbase, I didn’t even mention it because it’s completely baseless. People thought he was a bully during his time in Yian Middle School but obviously that’s not true. [return to SDC section]
Bibliography:
Choi, S. Y. P., & Lai, R. Y. S. (2021). Sex work and stigma management in China and Hong Kong: The Role of State Policy and NGO advocacy. The China Quarterly, 247, 855–874. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741021000035
Fang, Y., & Tang, C. (2023). Transactional Desire: Exploring Male Student Sex Workers in China. The Journal of Sex Research, 60(6), 925–936. https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1080/00224499.2023.2181306
Logan, T. D. (2017). Economics, sexuality, and male sex work. Cambridge University Press.
Table of Contents: (clickable!)
☆ SEXY and HOT ☆
☆ A Starry Is Born ☆
☆ Child Idol Speedrun Any% ☆
☆ Singing and Dancing At The Club ☆
☆ Xi-jie Exposes All (Maybe Too Much) ☆
☆ The Free Marketplace Of Fanservice ☆
☆ If It Looks Like A Duck, Swims Like A Duck, And Quacks Like A Duck… ☆
☆ Shining Forever ☆
He Zhongxing rose to prominence as a Chinese contestant on the 2025 Mnet survival show Boys Planet 2 (B2P) and was known for his catchphrase on the show, “sexy and hot, shining forever.” According to him, the show staff wanted him to say the phrase “sexy and hot” for his self introduction, and it stuck. Sexy became his image on the show as he performed sexy concepts such as Kill The Romeo, his nickname amongst the Chinese fanbase, and even part of his allure for new fans. He is tall and slender with long blonde hair, incurable chuunibyou and an aloofness that kpop audiences may not be used to, but find themselves drawn to anyway. He can’t help it, he’s a leo!
However, overshadowing his stage performances on the show are his frustrations and conflicts with teammates and production staff. Most of these edited to present him being short-tempered, agitated by the pressure of the show and its performances. While Zhongxing is quite reserved and a self-described loner, under the stressful conditions of the show, he was being pushed to the brink. In episode 6, he made an attempt to leave the show during the HOT performance preparations amidst tensions with his teammates, but the production staff managed to keep him on the show until he was eliminated in episode 8.
He was by far one of the most divisive characters on the show, with some annoyed at how his frustrations took away from his teammates’ efforts, some finding his antics with the other B2P contestants like Sho or Hanwen amusing, and even those who fell in love with him through his performances. But Zhongxing didn’t just appear out of nowhere— the story of his life began back in 2017. There are 8 years’ worth of dominoes that led him all the way to Boys Planet 2 and this post will cover most of it to provide context and show a side of Zhongxing that you won’t see in the show.
As he appeared on the show, rumours started to spread in the English speaking fandom that he was signed under an abusive company CEO and that he was forced to perform as a minor in 18+ bars and nightclubs, which was the same general impression I was under. From the child idol industry, lawsuits to live house bars, the truth weaves all the different threads of Zhongxing’s life together to form a more nuanced portrait of him. Throughout my research while writing this post, I started to notice that Zhongxing was viewed differently by different audiences, particularly the Chinese B2P fanbase; the more I dug into it, the more it became clear that Zhongxing’s audience reception serves as a reflection of the audience’s moral and social values rather than Zhongxing the person.
At the end of the day, the Sexy and Hot Zhongxing we know today was once just a 14 year old boy from Chongqing who wanted to be an idol. A star, like the character in his name. He was just a boy.
Disclaimer: Many of the links I’ve cited in this post are from Chinese sites with no English subtitles, but I’ve included relevant summaries or quotes in English. All English translations are done by me, so I apologize in advance if you catch a mistake. Also, I primarily use traditional Chinese so there may be inconsistencies between traditional and simplified Chinese though I tried to standardise everything in its original simplified Chinese.
To truly understand He Zhongxing, we must go back to where it began— his hometown of Chongqing.
The rest of this section will be a short biography of He Zhongxing’s early life, covering 2017-2023. I would not have been able to compile this post without my dear friend pungmul, who deserves the credit for digging up all this information, and I’m trying to encourage them to write their own post on the Yian Middle School lore because it goes deep. We were pulling at the roots of He Zhongxing’s lore so hard in this research that we found the craziest cpop idol mill pipeline from a random middle school in Chongqing all the way to the TF Entertainment conglomerate. But if the words TNT and INTO1 mean nothing to you— there is so much to this that it’s another deep dive altogether.
He Zhongxing has wanted to be an idol since he was a kid. Chongqing has a long history with opera and performance art; it’s the perfect environment for Zhongxing to hone his dancing and singing skills. But he also seemed to be inspired by Jpop idols as well, likely from internet exposure, eventually leading to Sho’s story about him singing a King & Prince song unprompted. Zhongxing is quite a weeb if his chuunibyou/middle-school syndrome isn’t obvious enough.
He attended a particular middle school in Chongqing called 育才中學, where he participated in school performances such as the School Arts Festival in 2017, alongside classmates who were TF Entertainment trainees. Outside of school, Zhongxing also attended an idol academy called TOPKING and released a dance cover under their channel.
First of all, the title is 13岁小清新皓皓，演绎最纯净的浪漫作品, Something New/13 year old fresh face Haohao stars in a performance of the purest romance, Something New. It’s kind of hard to translate the title accurately but there’s an emphasis on how new and innocent Zhongxing is, in a way that’s uncomfortable. The song lyrics include obvious allusions to sex, like I probably should wait, but I wanna let you go there / I wanna try something new, all night… But secondly, this music video doesn’t feel appropriate at all for a 13 year old. I believe his female dance partner is over 18 but she’s shown in her panties? And Zhongxing was shown waking up in bed and buttoning up his shirt?
I captured this screenshot that includes a comment someone left, saying, “aaaaah you’re still a child…”
Just keep the early sexualization in mind. Anyway, someone was paying close attention because not long after both of these videos came out, Zhongxing received a casting DM on Weibo from a Shanghainese company named 原际画/Original Plan Entertainment. Guess who the CEO is… A previous exec at TF Entertainment! This is a big deal. TF Entertainment is like the Johnny & Associates of China. Like SM Entertainment level big. Zhongxing probably knew that, which is why he signed the contract and flew the two and a half hours to Shanghai by himself where the promise of an illustrious idol career awaited.
So 易安中学/Yian Middle School isn’t a real middle school. In fact, this name is kind of ironic. As a concept, Yian Middle School is supposed to be a big pool of young trainees who are “students” with a graduation system; they perform at showcases and go through yearly “Summer Festivals” where fans vote for their favourites and the top 6 get to be in a special subunit called Yian Music Club… Hm. Funnily enough, AKB48, the legendary Japanese female idol group, has a similar rotational lineup with yearly elections, subunits and a graduation system… We’ll put a pin in AKB48 for now because they come up again later.
Zhongxing meets a fellow Chongqing-er amongst many in this wacky world of entertainment; Zhong Junyi, another aspiring idol who’s a year older than him (but they’re Chinese so a one year gap is whatever.) The two grow particularly close because the other trainees are even younger than they are and sort of under their care. Here’s a photo of Zhongxing, Junyi and the other trainees when they were filming content together to illustrate the point. (Junyi is the one in white and red, Zhongxing is the one wearing a blue shirt)
Zhongxing essentially speedruns the idol experience at YMS. Their Growth Program schedule pushed him to perform in 4 showcases in 4 months, basically equivalent to doing a survival show. Remember, he only had some idol academy dancing or singing training prior to this, unlike some others with longer dancing or singing experience, and these showcases involved cultural dances and even props. Plus he’s 14 years old. You can see through their online content that Zhongxing was growing visibly tired and even stressed during practice.
By mid 2018, Zhongxing and Junyi had mysteriously disappeared from YMS events and social media. Let’s guess why:
A. They were not receiving proper academic support and their environment was not conducive to studying. (Ironic for a group called Yian Middle School)
B. Their moms are filing a lawsuit against the company because they should return to Chongqing for better university prospects.
C. The CEO was allegedly taking them to bars and restaurants for drinking purposes and encouraged underage drinking.
D. All of the above.
Yes, it’s D! Turns out their contract is an insane ELEVEN YEAR LONG slave contract that their parents should’ve read the fine print for and this company is run by evil people. Zhongxing and Junyi returned to Chongqing while the lawsuit went on, only returning to court to testify for court proceedings. Their court case case was actually covered on state media with an angle on the domestic child idol industry.
It was not a clean split. It ended with the judges deciding that neither side could come to an agreement— Original Plan (O-Plan) actually won the case and when the case got appealed, they won the appeal and collected the contract termination fee from them (reduced from 150k RMB (21k USD) each to 45k for Junyi and 35k for Zhongxing). Thus, Zhongxing’s ties with Yian Middle School have been legally severed.
By the way, Zhongxing and Junyi (and two others who also filed lawsuits and left this company) got a lot of hate from this lawsuit, with a lot of YMS fans accusing them of lying to get away with underage drinking and escape their contract, which was the basis for those underage drinking/abusive CEO rumours. They also left comments on this video and on other forums about how these two getting bad grades are their own fault for not studying enough and being so hateful to two kids. I want everyone to look at these two 16 year olds sitting in the courtroom, Junyi on the left and Zhongxing (who buzzed his hair) on the right.
Either way, Zhongxing and Junyi seemed to have finished high school during this time. Junyi went on to join L.Tao Entertainment— yes, the company run by Tao from EXO, and appeared on 青春有你3/Youth With You 3 in 2021. It’s a trainwreck of a survival show but Junyi only makes it to 54th. Meanwhile, Zhongxing goes on 少年说唱企划/New Generation Hip Hop Project and does not even make it past the auditions.
I believe the two of them did go around and perform in more underground rap settings around this time, at least until Junyi tries his hand at being an idol again. He goes on Asia Super Young in 2023 and gets cancelled, and while I have to skip over the reasons, it’s worth further reading.[1]
Zhongxing himself keeps a low profile until 2023, when he finds a new job at a place at 优楽唱跳俱乐部/优楽 Singing and Dancing Club.
After the Yian Middle School endeavour and following lawsuit, Zhongxing ends up performing at a bar franchise called 优楽唱跳俱乐部/Youle Singing and Dancing Club (SDC) around 2023.
In September, after Zhongxing was already eliminated from B2P, a Zhongxing fan posted in the Douban B2P discussion community to explain why Zhongxing started working at SDC. However, it’s quite long and I want to break down things they mentioned in different sections of this post as they come up. I’ve structured this post to include quotes and context when I bring it up but I’ve also added the original post + my translation in the footnotes if you want to read the full thing. I haven’t found any solid evidence to refute nor corroborate the things mentioned in this post so we’ll take it all with a grain of salt. [2]
According to this post, in 2023, Zhongxing was considering going on an unnamed survival show (one can only imagine) and needed to drum up some popularity beforehand by performing. He found SDC through videos of one of their top performers named Seven, who he would later work alongside. Seeing an opportunity, Zhongxing was able to sign a contract with the SDC some time in 2023.
However, Zhongxing was told on his birthday that he wasn’t going on whatever survival show it was, so he kept his head down and continued working at Singing and Dancing Club. We’ll return to the details of this Douban post in a later section. To corroborate these details, I was also able to find Zhongxing on their weekly schedules posted online from March 2024 to December 2024. This timeline puts an end to the rumour that he worked at bars underage, which I suspect was mixed up with the details from the lawsuit with the O-Plan CEO.
Zhongxing wasn’t slumming it at all— I estimate that I’ve only compiled 60% of his schedules from this period but he performed at least 64 times between May to December 2024 across three branches in Chengdu, Xian and Shenyang. In both June and November, he performed every night for two weeks in a row. It seems that management quite liked him or that he was popular because he performed at the main branch in Shenyang on Halloween and again for their Christmas celebration.
Breakdown of his schedule between May to December:
| Month | Location | Performances |
|---|---|---|
| May | Xian | 6 |
| June | Chengdu | 14 |
| August | Chengdu | 11 |
| August | Xian | 4 |
| October | Shenyang | 1 (Halloween) |
| November | Shenyang | 7 |
| November | Xian | 14 |
| December | Xian | 1 |
I wouldn’t classify this type of establishment as a nightclub (as it has no open dance floor, only a stage) but more similar to a bar or lounge with live performances. They have multiple locations across China but they operate the same way, with their popular performers travelling to perform at different branches. At the bar, there is a minimum spending and customers must order drinks, but otherwise, customers are encouraged to stay for the performances. It should also be noted that these types of 18+ bar establishments with live performances are not uncommon in China, with many of them flourishing post-COVID as alternative forms of entertainment. Here is a video from 2022 showing people lining up out the door to enter the Xian branch of SDC and how packed it was in there.
Review-like videos by customers on Douyin often function as a form of marketing for Chinese bars and restaurants, some of which may be undisclosed paid advertisements. Many of them feature very little of the bar’s beverages but focus on the selling point: the roster of primarily male performing artists. The franchise has its own entertainment agency, which handles signing prospective artists, usually with some pre-existing internet fanbase, providing them with some training and scheduling them into daily lineups at each location. These artists actually range from DJs, MCs, dancers, to underground rappers, which Zhongxing identified himself as. Here is an example of a recent poster outside the doors advertising a carnival-themed event featuring their top male performers. I’ve highlighted two guys, Yang木木/Yang Mumu and MC 宋明星/Song Mingxing, whom I will go into further detail in the following section.
Here is a closer look at one of the weekly schedules posted by staff with Zhongxing in the lineup. I’ve annotated three guys: Seven, the guy who Zhongxing was inspired by, Mumu and Song Mingxing. They are labelled as “annually contracted guests,” as opposed to Zhongxing who’s an “annually contracted artist.” I think it means they all have a contract at SDC through to the end of the year, but the “guests” are the big headliners.
These establishments rely on their rotation of performers to pull in crowds of regular customers, giving them incentive to build parasocial relationships between both performers and the fans. This business model is reminiscent of similar endeavours in the idol industry, the most prominent example being AKB48. We’re returning to the pin! AKB48’s concept began as an experiment to create an idol group with a “home theatre,” where fans could come see daily performances by rotational lineups in one theatre, as opposed to the traditional model of idol groups travelling to perform in outside venues. By creating a physical space for fans to visit, fans had easy access to the idols’ performances, their merchandise, and a space to meet other fans. Earlier this year on the r/AKB48 subreddit, someone posted the question, “Is it worth going to Japan to see akb48 theatre performance?” A fan answers, “If you’re a fan, it’s definitely worth it, as you’re in a cherished famous historical AKB48 venue…” Here’s what the Shenyang main branch of SDC looks like compared to the AKB48 theatre (in both 2012 and present). (SDC, AKB48 1, 2)
AKB48’s concept was an extremely successful endeavour and various aspects of their concept have been tried in other idol markets, such as their large and rotational lineup, using subunits, and their graduation system where members can graduate from the entire system. We have to look no further than Yian Middle School to see AKB48’s impact and ponder whether Zhongxing felt drawn to the familiar. Even Lee Soo Man of SM Entertainment has reportedly been inspired by them and his most successful attempt resulted in NCT and all their subunits. It seems that the owners of the Singing and Dancing Club franchise were inspired by these models to create a “home venue” and a rotational lineup of performers.
With a rotational lineup of performances, it allows for more flexible schedules and SDC has even experimented with creating subunits or duo performances by their artists. They do produce great results— SDC clips regularly go viral on Douyin, allowing many of their artists to build big online fanbases, like Seven, who has over 600k followers on Douyin, and some of them even have fansites or dedicated fans who post fancams of them. A lot of them also stream on Douyin, Zhongxing being one of them, and we’re starting to see that parasocial connection form between artist and fanbase, slowly resembling a typical idol fanbase.
However, this is not where the parallels between this type of bar establishment and the idol industry end. In my research into the Singing and Dancing Club, I discovered this manager named 李小希/希姐/Xi-jie, aka older sister Xi, who is in charge of marketing and “artist development” for SDC artists. She technically works for the artist management company rather than SDC itself, but is rumoured to be a shareholder of the SDC franchise. While Xi-jie works behind the scenes, she also loves posting, which reveals more about SDC’s recruitment and management practices than she may think. Here she is introducing herself in an old video.
We return back to two of the top performers at the Singing and Dancing Club, Yang木木/Yang Mumu (99’ liner, DJ) and MC 宋明星/Song Mingxing (00’ liner, MC). They seemed to have started performing as a duo (referred to as 木星/MuXing, which also means Jupiter) as billed in schedules starting from late 2023, though they had made their SDC debut individually before this point. (Song Mingxing left, Mumu on the right)
They were extremely popular individually, making it to “annually contracted guest” status, but also together for yaoi reasons and usually headlined on days they were slated to perform. By August 2024, they seemed to have taken a hiatus from performing, which was why Xi-jie decided to do a Douyin live to update their fans.
I took notes in English on a clip of her stream, but when I went back to download and screenshot some parts of it, it has now been taken down. Luckily, I found a fan-run Douyin account that reposted some of Xi-jie’s old behind the scenes videos at SDC, including some featuring Mumu where she brings up details that she later repeats in the Douyin livestream.
Xi-jie openly discusses her personal role in recruiting and managing both of MuXing, saying how she watched them from the first day when “nobody knew them.” According to this video, Xi-jie couldn’t sleep one night so she decided to look through her Wechat contacts, found Mumu in there, and thought, wow he’s really handsome. She texted him to ask if he was still working as a DJ, which makes me think they’ve met at some point before, and he responded quite quickly, so she recruited him to work at SDC. She says that she did everything personally from discussing his wages to arranging plane tickets and accommodation to preparing his contract, and the two do seem close. In her Douyin livestream, she repeats the same details about Mumu and talks about a “funny anecdote” where Mumu almost wrote his own name wrong when signing the contract.
Unlike the carefully constructed pipelines of the Kpop or Jpop idol industries that start at childhood, SDC has to recruit artists who are of age (drinking age in China is 18). They specialize in 網紅/internet celebrities, either recruiting artists who already have an internet presence or turning aspiring artists into internet celebrities. Their online and offline marketing posters often feature a follower count or notable associations (like previously joined survival shows) for each artist. He Zhongxing himself has been promoted as a New Generation Hip Hop Project contestant on the SDC posters before. Here is one such poster from when he and Zhong Junyi would occasionally perform together as the duo Starryone, and a still from one of their performances. On the poster, Zhong Junyi is promoted as a Youth With You 3 contestant with over 350,000 followers.
It seems that Xi-jie was personally recruiting at least some of the artists at SDC herself. However, many of these performers are still young (19-24) with internet-based followings that are enticed by the prospects of explosive fame and the buzz of a post-COVID live audience. A lot of them also lack knowledge and experience in the entertainment industry and/or nightlife scene, which makes them vulnerable to being unknowingly mistreated or tied up in contracts; now that’s something the idol industry can relate to.
Xi-jie’s content suggests that management for the artists under the SDC franchise is more similar to the idol industry than we may expect. In addition to recruitment, Xi-jie seems to have a lot of other management responsibilities. In her behind the scenes video, she’s shown sitting in the back of the club and taking performance notes while the artists are on stage. She talks about personally picking out clothes for the artists as well as sending feedback on their fashion in their group chat, so she’s also in charge of their styling to some extent. We see her accompanying two artists in a car going somewhere; it seems she usually accompanies the artists as a manager when they go to different locations. While in the car, she also shares that the other day, one of the other SDC artists called her for five hours to talk about their worries and she had listened patiently to reassure them. All of these responsibilities are usually split amongst specialized staff in the kpop world, but at smaller companies, this may not be so unthinkable. Girlboss Xi-jie is not only a recruiter, a performance director, a stylist, a manager, but also a therapist— what could go wrong?
In her August 2024 Douyin live, Xi-jie talks about finding the right angles for photoshopping Song Mingxing’s photos, how she thought he suited a more manly image and then pushed him to go to the gym more often. She’s their stylist— she also mentions that she got him to start wearing more revealing stage outfits. It makes sense that as a marketing staff, she would help build her artist’s brand image, but because she’s also their stylist and their manager, she can further exert pressure on Song Mingxing to go to the gym and control what he wears on stage. Is giving this much power over an artist to one person a good idea? Xi-jie goes on to complain that kids born after 2000 (gen Z) don’t “listen well” to her, mainly directed at MuXing, and that she has to keep asking them every day if they went to the gym. From the way she talks about artist management, it seems like she feels she’s managing a bunch of children and has to take a micromanaging approach.
Xi-jie’s annoyance at MuXing “not listening well” to her direction while crediting herself personally for their success in her Douyin live takes on an uglier shape when further investigation reveals that MuXing were on hiatus because they were filing contract termination lawsuits with SDC, amidst rumours on social media that they were also being bullied by other performers they worked with closely. As of late 2025, Mumu has left SDC but Song Mingxing is still headlining shows today, presumably having come to some terms with SDC. With this context, Xi-jie proudly saying, “I think I want the best for them more than the two of them do,” leaves a sour taste.
She also posted this note on Douyin more recently, which I think is shade at Mumu for leaving:
Yes, she talked like this in the now deleted livestream clip, even though the tone is hard to translate. Yes, she is lowkey insane. This type of power-tripping management staff is sadly common in the Chinese entertainment industry— look no further than the Original Plan CEO amongst other horror stories. It’s not an easy job; I empathize with the fact that Xi-jie seems to be overloaded with responsibilities and even takes on the emotional labour of being her artists’ therapists, and to her credit, she does put the work in. But I think she was given too much power over these guys and believed that she “made” them, and she took it as a personal betrayal when they wanted to leave SDC, hence the rant.
Although there is no evidence to conclude that Zhongxing was mistreated while working at SDC, it’s worth noting that he was actively working there at the same time as MuXing and he definitely would’ve known Xi-jie. For all we know, she could’ve been the one writing the Weibo post glazing Zhongxing for B2P on the company account. She didn’t seem to manage him closely, but Zhongxing isn’t the type that needs much managing anyway, given his entertainment experience and independent personality.
In the Douban post [2] mentioned previously, the poster (OP) says Zhongxing was “fooled” into signing a contract to work at SDC, then also contradictorily notes that the boss knew all about Zhongxing’s situation. From what they describe, it seems Zhongxing had seen what SDC is about, contacted them first, and the boss was understanding of his plans. In my own opinion, given the context of Zhongxing having sued a previous boss for an unfair contract, I think he knew what he was signing up for and was okay with that. Plus he was an “annual contracted artist” for all of 2024, which seems to imply that after his initial contract in 2023, he chose to sign an annual contract for 2024.
Another point brought up in the Douban post is that Zhongxing didn’t get paid a lot to work at SDC and relied mainly on Douyin streaming for income, which is what most of the SDC artists do outside of performing there. I wonder if there’s a feedback loop here of internet celebrities working at SDC and bringing SDC more exposure while trying to grow their individual online following on low wages and surviving mainly off of Douyin streaming… Whether this is the brainchild of the marketing genius Xi-jie or an unintended side effect of this business model, I’m sure Xi-jie is well aware of it.
While backstage practices at SDC bear a lot of similarities to traditional idol industries, their artists’ actual performances and relationships with fans start to differ. The Douban post references the two major concerns that Chinese people seem to have with Zhongxing working at SDC in the first place: fanservice and stripping. We’ll get into why they’re concerned about those things later, but let’s take a look at what Zhongxing was doing at SDC.
While AKB48 theatre performances conclude with handshake/high-five events where fans get brief and boundary-enforced interactions with their idols, SDC artists seem to be encouraged to interact with their audience and fans however they want. A viral Douyin fancam of Seven, yes the Seven that led Zhongxing to SDC, shows him serenading a girl in the front row of the audience, leaning in and grabbing her by the back of her neck. Unlike traditional idol industries with extremely strict boundaries and norms around fanservice, especially physically, SDC is an 18+ bar establishment that doesn’t have to abide by those norms.
They’re not kissing but I know it looks like it lol.
SDC doesn’t seem to have any requirements about having to do fanservice. While the customers may be there to see a specific artist or interested in up close interactions, they are way less intense than the typical kpop idol fan that we may be used to. Even though they certainly know that fanservice moments go viral on Douyin, their audience is largely normal bar-goers and some regular fans, which eases the pressure and lets the artists lean into it as much as they want to. So… could this be considered (more) ethical fanservice? The larger degree of agency offered to SDC artists means they can engage in the fanservice on their own terms, in contrast to kpop idols whose fanbases have more expectations in terms of fanservice, both in frequency and form. For example, the sketchbooks with questions or messages, or getting your idol to complete your heart; that sort of stuff doesn’t happen at SDC.
While there are many videos of SDC artists getting up close and personal with female audience members, the videos of Zhongxing doing fanservice with female customers are all quite tame. He mainly keeps it to shooting hearts and the most egregious fanservice example I could find was a clip where he dances to the it’s time to go to bed song and holds a female audience member’s hand.
According to the big Douban post [2] Zhongxing would only “sing and dance normally,” and keeps a respectful distance between his fans both on and off the stage. Zhongxing himself has also said before that he never gives out his Wechat to girls who approach him (refer to link 1 in the Douban post footnote.)
So if doing too much fanservice isn’t the main issue with Zhongxing, what is? Well, there’s this Chinese slang, 擦边/cabian, that refers to stripping or taking off one’s clothes usually in an online context and funnily enough, the online definition I used to reference also describes this as a form of softcore pornography. Cabian doesn’t necessarily mean Magic Mike style strip teasing to a routine, but more like ripping off your shirt mid-performance or undoing all your shirt buttons. If you search up SDC on Douyin, this is what you’ll see:
While fanservice videos of SDC artists are popular, the most viral performance SDC videos involve the male performers ripping off their shirts, showing off their physique and dancing… provocatively. The official Douyin pages of various SDC branches include clips of their artists shirtless in their own promotional videos; it’s a selling point for them. Here is another recent fancam example from May of this year, featuring a whole lineup of men and garnering 391k views. Notably, strip clubs are banned in China; so this is the closest you’re gonna get to the strip club experience.
Many if not all of the male artists at SDC incorporate taking off their shirts into their routines and obviously, Zhongxing is no exception. The Douban post [2] claims that Zhongxing started off only dancing to boy group dances and did not initially engage in cabian/stripping. From the 2023 fancams that I’ve seen, Zhongxing performed in a variety of different outfits and styles, sometimes quite buttoned up, sometimes wearing normal clothes, and sometimes very shirtless.
Sources: 1, 2, 3
He gets a chest tattoo at some point in 2024 and not slutshaming but what’s the point of a chest tattoo if you can’t show it off? Zhongxing also seems to get more comfortable with his general shirtlesslessness because he also streamed on Douyin without a shirt on.
He didn’t have a strip tease routine or anything salacious in his performances. The most sexually explicit thing I’ve seen him do is cover Ggum by Yeonjun and do the hip thrusts. The Douban post seems to imply that Zhongxing was under some pressure to start stripping, as they write, “about the stripping and fanservice, it’s part of the expectations at the establishment, nobody will only appreciate your dancing at that place.” But again, I think Zhongxing knew what he was getting into at SDC and was fine with the cabian aspect of the job— it wouldn’t have been a surprise.
I would be doing Xi-jie a disservice if I didn’t also include her discussion on the topic of cabian/stripping as well. In one of her behind the scenes videos, she’s asked about cabian and she does point out that it’s one of the surefire ways to blow up online for SDC artists. Xi-jie tells her artists that it’s okay to do cabian from time to time but warns them against making it their main draw— then says that the guys who do make it their main draw are doing it by their own volition and that they’re ungovernable.
I do believe that while the brilliant Xi-jie knows the power of cabian and would have no qualms about pushing her artists to do it, she’s also savvy enough to know that it’s not a reliable way to maintain an audience. Given the level of agency SDC artists seem to have regarding fanservice, I think they also engage in cabian on their own terms. The Douban post OP has a point about the expectation of cabian at SDC based on their social media presence, as well as the potential pressure for their artists/Zhongxing to do it, such as Xi-jie pressuring Song Mingxing to work on his physique, but Xi-jie herself claims to discourage overdoing it. The thing about working with unverifiable second-hand information is that we’ll have to take both Douban post OP and Xi-jie’s words with a grain of salt; it’s possible both of their perspectives are true. There’s a big gray area here since Zhongxing hasn’t spoken out about his experience with cabian. Whether defending or attacking Zhongxing, it’s undeniable that he was engaging with cabian at SDC and it remains a point of contention— we will get into why it’s a big deal in the next section.
Although Zhongxing did get a small fanbase out of his time at Yian Middle School, the ensuing lawsuit and years that passed between then and 2023 destroyed a lot of it; most of the Chinese B2P fanbase actually know little about his time at YMS or the lawsuit. However, Zhongxing did start to gain a small following while working at SDC and gained a few fansite-like fans who would post clips and videos from his sets. Amongst the flood of Zhongxing videos from his time at SDC, a few of them were dug up and reposted by new B2P fans discovering He Zhongxing for the first time. I came across one such clip on Instagram reels that was reposted by a Korean Zhongxing fan. (Based on the watermark, OP is @小凡凡凡煩 on Weibo)
It’s a standard Douyin fancam clip you’d see from any SDC artist or even Zhongxing, less than 20 seconds of Zhongxing wearing cat ears, his jacket open to show his bare torso, and just being cute. What intrigued me was not the content but rather the comments on the video in various languages, expressing different opinions on Zhongxing based on nationality. I captured a handful of comments on the Instagram video on October 19th (most comments were left 6-9 weeks beforehand, when Zhongxing was still on the show) and translated them for analysis.
The English comments are relatively lighthearted or misguided, with one person poking fun about Zhongxing and Hanwen’s “internet footprint.” That’s also what I wanted to write about— the international (the wider English-speaking fanbase) perception that pre-B2P clips of these two from performances/previous jobs are embarrassing or even shameful because they’re dancing provocatively or acting cute on stage. Watching a clip of Zhongxing actively working, which he did sometimes for two weeks in a row, and calling him “unemployed” exemplifies how little value people assign to entertainment work. The comment about how it’s “so sad he forced him to do this” seems to be based in the “Zhongxing’s abusive CEO makes him work at bars” rumour, which we’ve clarified is not the case with Zhongxing’s work at SDC.
A broader trend I’ve noticed amongst Zhongxing’s fanbase is that his Korean fans who were first exposed to him through B2P can embrace his cool and reserved demeanor, his tall and slender looks, and most importantly, his branding as SEXY and his shirtless SDC videos. They actually kinda love it. However, Chinese audiences seem to view Zhongxing quite differently. Most of the comments are making fun of the moment where he snapped at Guo Zhen on B2P, asking Guo Zhen if he made a face at him during a tense argument. Other comments are worse.
But if you’re an international or Korean fan, you may be left feeling puzzled. Sure, Zhongxing had his moments on B2P, but nothing that would warrant a torrent of hate like this. A Korean fan even points out in the top comment, “why don’t Chinese unnies like He Zhongxing…??”
That’s what inspired me to embark on this whole project. I want to answer that question and we must do that by understanding Chinese societal norms and the Chinese perception of sex work. But if you want the short answer, look no further than the rhetorical comment, “who on earth likes a duck?”
In Chinese slang, 雞/chicken is used to refer to female sex workers, originating from a homonym for female prostitute. While it’s not inherently derogatory, the stigma around sex work means it is still used in a degrading manner and the comparison of women to livestock is obviously problematic. 鴨/duck is the male counterpart— if you refer back to the earlier screenshot of comments on He Zhongxing’s video, someone outright refers to him as one. So what about this video makes him a duck? Where does this disgust come from? Why would He Zhongxing being a duck mean that nobody could like him?
Let’s examine the Chinese stigma against sex work in closer detail. This is the boring part with no pictures but I’ll try to throw a few in.
While homosexuality is decriminalized in China, many LGBTQ+ rights and protections like same-sex marriage and adoption rights are only a dream for queer people in China. Prominent LGBTQ+ activists and organizations are subject to the same treatment as other organizations lobbying too hard for political change— being shut down, silenced, or even disappeared. However, broader Chinese society is inflicted with a milder, more passive form of homophobia. The pressure is placed on maintaining heteronormative status quo, with the traditional expectation of marriage, children and continuing the family lineage; queerness is incompatible with these values under the Chinese societal framework. With the proliferation of the internet and accessibility to queer media, younger generations of Chinese people are generally becoming more accepting of homosexuality.
However, even as Chinese society becomes more open minded towards queerness and sex, sex work is still seen as taboo. As researchers studying Chinese male college student sex workers writes, “sexual behavior was once considered legitimate only within marriage, then sex in relationships, and more recently, one-night-stands and hookups, are all gradually becoming more socially acceptable, but commercial sex is still highly stigmatized and deemed unethical by the society for both the sex workers and the clients.” (Tang and Fang, 2023)
Since 1992, the Chinese government’s position is that prostitution is “one of the “六害/six vices” that “严重毒害社会风气/seriously poison social mores” and “扰乱社会治安/disturb social order.” In addition, the government frames female sex workers “not as victims but as “morally decadent individuals” and “违法犯罪分子/illegal criminals.” (Choi and Lai, 2021) Regardless of the average Chinese person’s exposure to sex work in real life, the labelling of prostitution as a national vice and sex workers as immoral and criminal people has deeply coloured the societal perception of sex work. I racked my mind to think of any Chinese movies I’ve watched that tackle sex work and came up empty except for Lust, Caution (2007), which is the closest you’ll get but it’s not exactly sex work. Major dubcon warning if you want to watch the movie though.
Current academic literature focuses on sex work as under the paradigm of labour. We must isolate sex work from its moral and social stigma to understand that engaging in sex work is not an inherently bad moral decision. Sex work is a legitimate form of labour and has its own market, consumers and workers as does any industry. This perspective prioritizes the agency of sex workers and those who choose to enter the industry on their own terms, as supported by NGOs, academia and sex workers themselves, but in Chinese society, sex work is still seen as a moral failing or at best, an exploitative and coercive industry. In a study on female Chinese sex workers, many cited “poverty, drug use, debts, medical costs and familial financial needs,” as reasons they entered the industry rather than “personal advancement and freedom.” There is truth to the exploitative nature of the sex industry, especially for lower-class women who engage in it, but the social stigma that sex workers face prevents them from self-advocacy and gaining more agency. As a result of societal stigma, they carry a lot of shame around their work, referring to it as “这个邪事/this abhorrent thing”, “丢人现眼的事/this face-losing job” or “没面子的事/this shameful job,” as well as noting that the people around them treated them like “nothing” or “not even a human being.” (Choi and Lai, 2021) The overwhelming stigma of sex work not only impacts how they are shunned by other people but also becomes internalized shame and an isolating lifestyle.
But back to He Zhongxing. A college-aged middle class man doesn’t fall into the stereotypical view of a Chinese sex worker as a poor, desperate, immoral woman— but that doesn’t mean college-aged middle class Chinese men aren’t engaging in sex work. There has been a recent surge in research into the college-aged Chinese male sex worker demographic and it reveals the differences in male and female sex work, from the gateway into the industry, their motivations and the way they conduct their work. A study on this topic notes that “in most cases, male student sex workers were enticed by clients seeking commercial sex or intermediaries on the internet,” rather than actively seeking out the sex work industry. While most of them cited “material benefits” as their primary motivation, “they were not doing it for livelihoods but more for fulfilling their consumption desires,” as an extra source of income. (Tang and Fang, 2023) Unlike women entering sex work, this demographic of men engage in sex work not out of necessity but rather voluntarily. Though this demographic of male sex workers have more agency in the industry, it also lends more to the Chinese perception that sex work is a moral failing when they choose to participate rather than participating out of financial necessity to in the case of many women.
Logan writes in Economics, Sexuality, and Male Sex Work, “then and now, the primary buyers and sellers of male sexual services have been men. As such, male sex work has always carried the added stigma of homosexuality, causing male sex to be socially distinct from the more widely practiced female sex work.” (2017) Unlike female sex workers, most male sex workers have to face the stigma of homosexuality on top of sex work— regardless of how they identify their sexual orientation outside of work, engaging in sex with men puts these sex workers in the crosshairs of homophobia. Chinese male sex workers manage this by concealing their identity, with the mentality that “as long as others do not find out, they would not need to bare those stigmas in public.” (Tang and Fang, 2023) Twitter has become the popular social media in China for the sex industry as they are not subject to Chinese censorship; some Chinese male sex workers start as pornographers on Twitter before engaging in commercial sex, and for some of them, it was their gateway into the industry. While Chinese male sex workers can hide their work online and mask their identity in public, they must still bear the private burden of internalized shame around both homosexuality and sex work.
However, the college-aged Chinese male sex worker may not only engage with male clients; a growing number take female clients exclusively or in addition to male clientele. There is a developing female clientele for male sex work in China, with some seeking “direct sexual transactions,” while others, mainly younger women, also look for “companionship and intimacy.” Research into the female clientele in the sex industry is still developing but many are drawn to the “boyfriend experience” that offers both companionship through dates and sexual transactions, in contrast to male clients. Current literature suggests that this new form of sex work aimed at women “reduce the moral pressure and stigmas associated with commercial sex in China,” allowing them to manage the stigma of engaging in sex work as a buyer. (Tang and Fang, 2023) The popularity of the boyfriend experience reflects how male sex work is changing in China; the introduction of parasocial or emotional attachment into sex work relationships, the growing female clientele, and the expansion into new niches.
A notable anecdote from Tang and Fang’s article, Transactional Desire: Exploring Male Student Sex Workers in China:
A few students entered the sex industry at a younger age. Lai started doing sex work when he was a 10th grader. He recalled the time his high school classmate brought him to a bar to find clients:
A high school classmate introduced me to sex work when I was 16. He brought me to a bar … We used to play games and drink alcohol with clients. If a client and I both had a feeling for each other, we would go to a hotel after the party, and she will pay me. (Lai, 20, Heterosexual, College Student) (2023)
The parallels in this male sex worker’s anecdote and He Zhongxing’s history of being brought to bars by his CEO and underage drinking is almost eerie— and yet the way Chinese fans view Zhongxing is starting to make sense, right?
This isn’t exactly an uncommon story— the nightlife scene is the one of the only places in tightly monitored and controlled Chinese society where sex work can be conducted offline, and the intersection of sex work and bars/clubs means close association to the nightlife scene are looked down upon. As sex work industries in China has expanded rapidly, such as through internet-based forms like camming, the nightlife scene has recently thrived in the grey area of the service and sex work industries; from karaoke lounges, hostess bars to high-end bars that target wealthier clientele.
A SDC customer writes in their review, “if you want to see this stuff, just go find some 模子, they say they’re different from 模子, but they’re act more 模子 than actual 模子.” The term 模子/mozi or 模子哥/mozige (male) is derived from the word 模特/model, and has now evolved to describe a type of male karaoke lounge host.
The karaoke lounge host/hostess model originated in Japan but is now one of the more visible forms of sex work in China for both male and female sex workers. Typically, one or multiple host(s)/hostess(es) will accompany their client(s) at a karaoke lounge room and drink and play games with them, earning commission based on the alcohol and food that clients order. Hosts/hostesses are expected to be warm, make conversation and allow for a certain level of touching or physical contact. However, there is a distinct difference between a mozi and a duck/male sex worker— mozi do not usually engage in direct sexual services with their clients, though there is a grey area for that. This is a (PG13+) movie clip that depicts a typical karaoke lounge hostess experience in China, at least as perceived in the media. I’ve included another photo below from a karaoke lounge hostess in Beijing that shows the reality of the work, when all available hostesses are herded into a room of fresh clients and the clients pick out the hostesses they want to hire for the night. (This was posted as part of this establishment's marketing.) Kind of demoralizing.
The 模子/mozi is an example of the way male sex work has developed niches for female clients by focusing on companionship rather than sexual transaction and hiding within plain view in the nightlife scene. However, the reality of being a mozi is not as glamorous as it may seem. Many of these mozi are college-educated young men who are unable to find another job or desperate to escape the harsh working life in China and rely on tips, regulars and commissions to survive. On days that they don’t get hired, they could even lose money by the end of the day; many of them get their daily nutrition by picking at overpriced fruit platters ordered by clients, enough that it’s become a common term used amongst mozi, 果盤男孩/fruit basket boy. For more reading on this topic, this Chinese article on mozi that includes many personal stories from mozi themselves that they share on social media. It also digs into the primarily female responses to their stories and how freely they comment on the lives and appearances of these mozi, feeling entitled to treat them the same way that their female clients do. It seems both Chinese women and men view sex workers under the same dehumanizing societal stigma of sex work regardless of gender; I’ve included an example of a mozi diary post from the article.
In addition to the disgruntled SDC customer’s complaint that the DJs and MCs lack talent to the point where potential customers are better off seeing a mozi, they also point out that SDC tries to differentiate themselves from mozi but ultimately act more like mozi than actual mozi. While I disagree because these two occupations are fundamentally different, what is SDC other than a gimmicky host bar at first glance? In a society where strip clubs are banned, the nightlife scene is “dirty,” and everyone knows what karaoke lounge hosts do, a bar that openly advertises men stripping themselves and engaging in heavy fanservice with female audiences easily lends itself to comparisons to mozi.
To bring it back to He Zhongxing, we can re-examine those comments on his Instagram reel with new context.
Comments like “get out of my reels” and “vomit” are just scratching the surface of the Chinese fanbase’s disgust at He Zhongxing. “Can you wear your clothes” and “nobody wants to see your ribs” are more pointed at his brazen sexuality and comfortability with being shirtless, plus a little bodyshaming. Remember, strip clubs are banned in China and sexual repression is the default— he might as well be fully naked to them. Displays of open sexuality can only mean sexual deviancy to certain swaths of Chinese netizens; if Zhongxing was doing yaoi fanservice (the Chinese term being 賣腐/selling tofu), or doing physical fanservice with a lot of girls, he would’ve been dragged for those things as well.
To me, what Zhongxing does as a performer on the SDC stage is miles away from the real life of a mozi or an actual duck/male sex worker; there is no evidence to suggest Zhongxing has ever engaged in sex work. In the Douban post [2], OP makes a point to differentiate this as well, by writing, “everyone can scold him for the stripping but he really wasn’t a duck.” Even Douban post OP finds themself reinforcing the sex work stigma— is stripping for an eager audience on his own terms something worth scolding in the first place?
As we’ve covered in this section, He Zhongxing’s association with the nightlife scene whether based on underage drinking rumours or his work at SDC has rendered him an immoral person in the eyes of Chinese society, a person who should be ashamed of himself; his lack of shame around his work has only made them hate him more. While we can conceptualize sex work as both an exploitative industry but also a legitimate form of labour independent of morality, to Chinese society, there is no room for nuance. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck— then it must be a duck.
I started this project to examine the difference in Korean, International and Chinese audiences’ perception of He Zhongxing, but it quickly spiraled into this gigantic project. Going into this, I was working with what most international fans knew about Zhongxing, which is nothing more than his B2P appearance and vague rumours about his life before B2P swirling around, mainly that he worked at a bar. Not only are those rumours blown up into something unrecognizable through an international game of telephone, the truth exposes a much bleaker reality that He Zhongxing lived.
In 2017, a 14 year old He Zhongxing had his first ever self introduction posted on the Yian Middle School account. (Fan reupload)
Zhongxing was just a boy from Chongqing that dreamed of being an idol. Before he’d even stepped into the idol world, he was already sexualized in a dance cover and he was only 16 by the time his contract lawsuit concluded. By 18, he’d already tumbled through the idol industry machine and came out the other side with nothing but trauma. Finally able to explore music and perform on his own terms, working at SDC was Zhongxing’s second chance— but it was an experience that would ironically prevent him from being an idol again.
This is probably my favourite Zhongxing photo that I’ve come across in my research. A customer at SDC took this candid shot of him before going up on stage, and I think it’s a beautifully raw photo of a normal guy, not an idol or a mozi but existing somewhere in the grey area, just standing around at his workplace.
Diving into Zhongxing’s experience in the Chinese child idol industry reveals how deeply embedded idol industry pipelines are, just as they are in kpop and jpop; he wouldn’t have been on the radar of big Shanghainese entertainment companies if he didn’t happen to attend the same random middle school in Chongqing as other TF Entertainment trainees. Zhongxing’s story is also quintessentially Chinese: there is a long Chinese history of internal migration from rural or smaller urban centers to larger industrious urban cities along the coast, especially undertaken by children. From restrictive slave contracts, the CEO’s abuse of power, encouraging underage drinking, falling behind on education— 14 year old Zhongxing was failed by the adults who were supposed to care for him when he moved across the country alone.
Zhongxing’s time at the Youle Singing and Dancing Club and further insight into the modern adult entertainment industry in China offers interesting parallels to the idol industry practices. The internet and social media has become the main marketplace for entertainment in China; Zhongxing was casted by O-Plan via Weibo and he found SDC through social media as well. Both idols and SDC artists go through singing and dancing training, build their own image and stage persona, and even engage in similar fanservice and gain idol-like fanbases— the main difference between them is just their age. Both management structures seem to attract those who thrive on control over these young boys and both fanbases feed heavily into parasocialism between artist and audience. Did the Youle Singing and Dancing Club purposely build their business model on the back of the idol industry? Or is this the natural outcome of every entertainment industry niche that profits off of young artists who want to perform and their parasocial fans? I wonder what Xi-jie would have to say about this.
The examination of Chinese attitudes towards sex work is crucial in understanding not only the appeal of entertainment niches like SDC or mozi but also the wider perception and disdain of these industries. We may be used to western concepts of overt sexual displays such as strip clubs, as presented in popular media, but in China, stringent moral codes dictate the way people interact with sexuality, especially in public display. Sex work opposes the traditional Chinese values of marriage and family but also becomes criminal, isolating those in the industry from society. Sharing the market of young heterosexual women and the platforms of social media is now forcing male sex work industry and male idol industry closer in proximity than before; they may even start influencing each other, resulting in a franchise such as Youle Singing and Dancing Club. While most of Chinese society are morally opposed to sex work, more entertainment niches are growing in this grey area where women are gaining more agency to explore sexuality and intimacy.
I wanted to go more into Zhongxing’s experiences in Yian Middle School and how it affected his experiences on B2P, but that would turn this into a whole other post. Having seen 14 year old Zhongxing being scolded and having a minor breakdown on camera during dance practice makes his frustrations during B2P (particularly the sticker incident and the hot breakdown) more heartbreaking in retrospect. His experiences of being tossed around in the idol system makes his decision not to appear on Home Race and instead pivot back into rap by going on Show Me The Money with his pal Zhong Junyi (the blonde guy next to him in the video) more understandable.
It’s honestly beautiful that the two of them are still friends and pursuing music careers together. Look at them as kids and them performing together post Zhongxing B2P elimination.
By writing this long post/thesis, I wanted to present the more human side of He Zhongxing, why he is the way he is and why many of the Chinese B2P trainees defend him whenever they can. He’s just a guy with a dream that’s been broken by the system that failed him, a story shared by many other Chinese B2P guys. I also hope that by presenting Chinese attitudes towards sex work as context for why he’s widely disliked amongst the Chinese fanbase, international fans can give him more grace rather than pile onto the hate and misperception of him, even if unintentional. I’m basically doing what Douban post OP was also trying to do but my post is 10x longer lol.
I want to give another shout out to my amazing friend and collaborator pungmul for helping me sift through Douban posts, trawl through Douyin pages, as well as editing and providing feedback for this post. I could not have completed this without your support (listening to my malignant moaning), and I look forward to your own write ups very soon!
When Zhongxing got eliminated from B2P, he made a post on Instagram with a Korean caption about how he saw himself with black hair again and it reminded him of when he had black hair at 14 years old. From the caption and the Chinese comment he also left, it feels like this is an ending of another Zhongxing era and a goodbye to the idol that he could’ve been and tried to be. But as Zhongxing says himself, he can’t live in the past anymore. Just because he’s not an idol now, doesn’t mean he can’t still be a star— one that shines forever.
“I’ve walked on this road for 8 years, I can’t live in the past, but I’ll let you guys see a brand new me, sexy and hot, shining forever.”
[1] Zhong Junyi has a lot of lore on his own. I’m not an expert so I’ll leave some links for your own reading, at least until I’ve convinced pungmul to do a write up on him. Here is a twitter thread that has receipts of the whole thing but it’s not a write up. If you know enough Chinese slang to navigate this Weibo masterpost about Asia Super Young contestants’ drama, please have at it because I don’t think even I can parse through some of this. [return]
[2] This is really long, so I added it as a footnote.
A Twitter user has also posted a machine-translated version of the post but the post has slang that I don’t think the machine could catch, so I did my own translation. First link at the top goes to another Douban post with a clip of an undated Zhongxing Douyin stream (seems to be during his time at SDC) talking about how he has always been a loner, he mostly hung out by himself at school and practiced dancing, he never let girls add him on Wechat and had no interest in dating at all. I’m also attaching the Weibo screenshot of the company behind SDC talking about Zhongxing in June when he appeared on B2P. It’s actually really nice and supportive, they talk about how he worked really hard when performing there and would stay late to practice every day after shows. The last link at the end goes to Weibo post that clarifies some rumours of Zhongxing being a bully in the Chinese fanbase, I didn’t even mention it because it’s completely baseless. People thought he was a bully during his time in Yian Middle School but obviously that’s not true. [return to SDC section]
Bibliography:
Choi, S. Y. P., & Lai, R. Y. S. (2021). Sex work and stigma management in China and Hong Kong: The Role of State Policy and NGO advocacy. The China Quarterly, 247, 855–874. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741021000035
Fang, Y., & Tang, C. (2023). Transactional Desire: Exploring Male Student Sex Workers in China. The Journal of Sex Research, 60(6), 925–936. https://doi-org.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/10.1080/00224499.2023.2181306
Logan, T. D. (2017). Economics, sexuality, and male sex work. Cambridge University Press.