师兄, or shixiong, is another one of those Chinese terms that don’t really have a direct English equivalent. It means a male “senior” in an educational setting, e.g. if you were a male 5th grader and I was a 4th grader of either gender, you would be my shixiong.

However foreign this appellative may seem to you, it’s very much universal in China. From elementary students to post-doctoral graduates, guys’ hearts melt when they hear the soft timbre of a fellow female classmate’s voice say, “Shixiong, I need your help.”

SXBBM.com, an acronym for “Shixiong, I need your help”, is the new kid in the SNS block. Currently only available to Peking University, Tsinghua University, and 5 other universities in Beijing, SXBBM.com operates on a O2O model, connecting intra, as well as inter-collegiate networks.

How? Why, through the joys of fulfilling tasks of course. Over 1,000 tasks has been completed since SXBBM’s official launch a couple of days ago. Previously, only a Beta version was available to Tsinghua students.

Currently, only females can post tasks and only males can undertake them. Girls are encouraged to reciprocate by giving fruit, drinks, and even cash. The terminal goal for most, however, is finding love.

SXBBM.com just completed promotion for its site by providing 513 free gift bags for girls which needed to be picked up by a male user, ending yesterday on Girl’s Day.

Privacy was one of SXBBM’s top priorities. While browsing is available to everyone, only users on university networks could post and reply to tasks. Few Chinese universities have Guest networks available, so this is an effective measure to fend off posers.

I gave the service a test run, posted a task, and promptly within half an hour, chose one lucky suitor from amongst 5 candidates for a running date tomorrow at 7:30 AM. Easy breezy.

Just to give you a gist of what tasks are being posted, of the 20 newest tasks, 9 are seeking academic help, 6 have tech/computer-related questions (think Geeksquad), 4 are seeking playmates, and 1 is looking for her knight in shining armor to help her film a movie.

To give you a fuller picture of which tasks are receiving the most attention, the most popular task belongs to a Tsinghua girl who is looking for a 1-day boyfriend (nearly 30 people have already applied to complete this task). In any case, 8 out of 10 of the most popular tasks belong to the famed and beautiful Renmin University girls. Go figure.

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