SEVERAL VIDEOS SHOWING A STUDENT from Zhejiang University talking in an extremely rude way to a staff member of a company sponsoring the university activities have gone viral. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

According to reports, the male student asked the company representative to bring more products as sponsorship and uttered threats such as "Unless I say 'yes', Zhejiang University will prohibit your company from participating in any of our events" when his demand was rejected.

After videos of their conversation were posted online, Zhejiang University stated that the man is only a student and not a student official at the university and that he had apologized to the company and its employee.

The incident received a lot of attention as the phenomenon of student officials behaving in overbearing ways has been rampant for the past few years. Last month, videos of a student union official scolding a subordinate with insulting words at Chengdu Aeronautic Polytechnic went viral.

The root of the problem lies in some student union members viewing themselves in the wrong way. They are supposed to serve students, but in reality they often consider themselves as officials with the authority to "govern" other students. In their hearts, they simply do not regard their classmates as equals. That distorted mindset must be changed in order to curb the rude and bureaucratic behavior of student officials.

Besides, students are youngsters and they are trying to imitate the behavior of their teachers and college officials. When they behave in rather bureaucratic ways, that means many college officials and teachers behave like bureaucrats, too. Actually, there have long been reports of professors complaining about bureaucrats acting rather rudely in colleges. Only when university officials set good examples, will the students on campus behave civilly.