University sorry for pairing male laowais with female 'buddies'

"Foreigner privilege” became all the rage last week on the Chinese internet. While one Egyptian man was getting off with nary a slap on the wrist after shoving a police officer in Fujian province, male foreign students at a Shandong university were rumored to be allocated three female “buddies” each.

Shandong University instituted its “buddy system” back in 2016 in order to help foreign students adapt more easily to life in China. However, after it was revealed online that in 2018 the program boasted 47 international students to 141 local buddies, the school quickly came under fire for being a bit too accommodating.

While it was not mandated that these buddies should be of the opposite sex, it’s been reported that the majority of the international students who took part in the program were male while most of the Chinese “buddies” were female.

Turns out, the registration form had even emphasized “making foreign friends of the opposite sex” as one of the potential drawing points of the program.

On Friday, Shandong University issued a statement on its official Weibo account, apologizing for the “negative influence” that its buddy system had caused on society.

While the university dismissed reports that male foreign students were each assigned with three female Chinese companions, it vowed to conduct a comprehensive review over how its system operates.

Many schools across China have similar sorts of “buddy systems” in place, helping to facilitate language and cultural exchanges between international and domestic students.

However, this particular one obviously struck a nerve among Chinese students who have often complained in the past about how their foreign counterparts are blessed with “privileges” unavailable to themselves, like better accommodation in university dormitories.

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