KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 — A Malaysian employee has recently shot to stardom on Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, thanks to her high-quality dance performance at a Haidilao Malaysia hotpot chain branch she worked at.

At just 21-year-old, the reception manager from Penang’s Sunway Carnival Mall branch in Butterworth has captivated dining customers with her dance performances, so much so that she now garnered over 102,000 followers on Xiaohongshu after her dancing went viral in June.

Who is she?

Known on Xiaohongshu as "Xiao Bai” or "Little Bai”, she frequently appears in posts or videos on Xiaohongshu uploaded by diner patrons that demonstrates her dancing routines to various songs, either solo or with her colleagues.

In fact, the journey to her rising popularity began as early as June 29, when Xiao Bai uploaded her first video on Xiaohongshu of her dancing with another colleague at the aforementioned Haidilao outlet.

Since then, she has drawn many customers to her outlet to catch a glimpse of her performance over the months with numerous dance videos taken by diners and uploaded on Xiaohongshu.

This eventually culminated in Haidilao’s Singapore branch arranging for a "Xiao Bai dance tour” across 10 of its outlets from September 23 to 27 recently.

On July 30, Haidilao International also paid homage to Xiao Bai’s dancing skills — where she is seen dancing — in a Xiaohongshu video uploaded to promote their Celebrity Buddy Program.

What is Haidilao?

Founded in Jianyang, Sichuan in 1994, Haidilao has since grown to become China’s largest hot pot chain; and over 1,400 chain restaurants in China, Singapore, US, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and Australia.

The brand opened its first overseas restaurant in Clarke Quay, Singapore in December 2012; it then opened its first Malaysian outlet at Sunway Pyramid Mall back in March 2018.

Its name can be translated as deep sea fishing or literally "scooping the bottom of the ocean”.

Well-known for its customer experience and queues, the brand’s restaurants are famed for complimentary before-meal services and amenities such as manicure, snacks for waiting customers and children’s play areas.

The establishment is also well-known for its ‘noodle dance’, where employees known as ‘noodle masters’ perform elaborate hand-pulled noodle performances in front of patrons.