Photos of pretty guys and girls holding up placards that say “Do you want me to become part of your blossoming youth?” are riling people with their low-brow connotations and provoking a backlash against the notable Chinese university behind the marketing.

The images of the youngsters, all current students sporting handsome looks, are meant to promote Nanjing University in Jiangsu province in its enrollment efforts to reach out to high-school graduates.

“I am waiting for you at Nanjing University,” ran Chinese characters in bold in the photos, which were displayed in posts uploaded to the school’s official Weibo page on Monday.

Placards held by the students in the photos came with enticing lines such as “Do you want me to immerse in the library with you from morning till night?” and “Appreciating the majestic beauty of art at the Xingyun building.”

Some internet users slammed the pictures as vulgar, embarrassing and an attempt to objectify women, saying that the university was “treating females as walking sexual resources.” Others said they were fine with the promotional material. The university later took down the posts.

China affairs commentator Johnny Lau said that universities’ eagerness to recruit students could be traced back to a decision by the Chinese government in 1993 to expand university places as a solution to high unemployment among young people.

Amid the slowing population growth, the government policy led to an oversupply of study places, so universities had to resort to various ways of making themselves appealing to quality students and meet the political demands of the higher-ups, Lau told Apple Daily.

Many of these enrollment drives were way overdone, with some becoming too gimmicky and commercialized, Lau added. He warned that the unorthodox methods could become the norm and be difficult to undo in future.

Besides student recruitment, classroom arrangements in some universities also came under fire. A recent social media photo of Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang showed a deliberate seating plan that placed female students on both sides of a foreign male student.

Hebei Normal University responded on Monday by saying that the image was taken from an April 2019 television program about the development of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Hebei province.

It said that what the photo showed was a “normal activity” and was aimed at strengthening both the foreign language skills of Chinese students and the Chinese language ability of foreign students.

Internet users countered: “Why aren’t male students acting as companions?”

In 2019, Shandong University sparked an uproar in cyberspace when it launched a campaign to recruit female student companions to attract foreign male students. Critics mocked the university for turning its student fellowship service into a “comfort system.”

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