- A mother makes her 22-year-old daughter take a breathalyzer test when she's home after a night out.
- Jin, the daughter, says she's only allowed to drink drink alcohol after she gets married.
- The story went viral on social media and sparked wide debate about parenting styles in China.
Whenever 22-year-old Jin returns home after a night out, she finds her mother waiting at the door — with a breathalyzer test.
In a recent viral story shared over China's social media, Jin shared how her mother has banned her from drinking alcohol until after she ties the knot, per Chinese news outlet Xing Video. This is despite China only prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under the age of 18.
"I've always passed the breathalyzer test because I don't even dare to drink," she told the outlet, adding that she must also conform to her mother's strict 10 p.m. curfew.
Jin didn't provide further details on the reasons behind the drinking ban, but the outlet said that her mother can be "at ease" only after seeing proof that Jin has not touched alcohol.
The story has sparked wide debate on social media, with the hashtag "22-year-old asked by mother to take breathalyzer test when she returns home late" receiving more than 290 million views on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
Many Weibo users criticized the mother's "suffocating" parenting style.
"This is not parenting. It's practically foot binding," one user commented, in reference to the now-banned Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding young girls' feet to make them smaller in the name of beauty.
"She's already 22, it's time for the mother to learn to let go," another user wrote.
Other users said they understood the mother's behavior. "There have been so many terrible cases of women being abused because of drunk men recently. The mother is just trying to protect her child," someone wrote.
Last year, several high-profile allegations of rape linked to heavy alcohol consumption made headlines in China. The cases included allegations by an Alibaba employee who claimed a supervisor and a client sexually assaulted her during an alcohol-fueled work gathering.
Meanwhile, one of China's biggest celebrities, Kris Wu, has been on trial after a teenager accused him last year of raping her while she was drunk.