What is the Shan Shen Bu meme?
Updated · Shanshenbu Dance
Shan shen bu (闪身步), the "flash step", is a quick side-to-side dodge from the Flower Drum Lantern folk dance of Anhui, China. It comes from a Beijing Dance Academy tutorial filmed in the 1990s with teachers Zhao Tiechun and Ming Wenjun and posted online in 2018. Chinese social media made it a meme in September 2026; AI remakes on TikTok followed, with a delivery rider, a shrimp and cats doing the step.
Shan Shen Bu
The photo
Where it started
The step comes from the Flower Drum Lantern dance of Anhui province, a national intangible cultural heritage in China. The Beijing Dance Academy filmed it in the 1990s for a folk dance tutorial, with teachers Zhao Tiechun and Ming Wenjun; a dance graduate posted that tutorial online in 2018 to keep the footage.
In September 2026 Chinese social media picked up three of its moves: the flash step, "prodigal kicking the ball" (a bendy hopping kick) and "black bear shaking fur". Celebrities copied it, and AI remakes spread on TikTok from late September (The Star, from the South China Morning Post, 13 October 2026).
How people use it
- Copying the step on camera, at work, on the street or in the kitchen, as straight-faced as the teachers.
- Joking that the flash step dodges unwanted tasks or squeezes you onto a rush-hour train.
- AI remakes with someone else doing it: a delivery rider, a shrimp on the tutorial's blue stage, a white cat in a courtyard.
Make your own
Shanshenbu Dance makes your own version from one photo: Upload one full-body photo and get a vertical video of you doing the shan shen bu flash step in a few minutes.
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