This is the moment a young man pleads for his departing girlfriend to stay with him as he kneels at her airport departure gate with his hands clasped in front of him.

The romantic gesture was filmed in the city of Wenzhou in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, and the footage has been widely shared on the social network Douyin, also known as TikTok.

In the footage, the young man, name not reported, is seen kneeling on the floor in front of masked security guards as he sobs “I beg you, can we make it work?”

The camera then pans to a young woman in a white jacket as she picks up her hand luggage and turns her head away.

According to the news site Baidu, the couple had an argument before the airport incident and broke up. To win his lover back, the young man went to the airport as she was about to board her flight and begged her to come back to him.

However, local reports said the woman quietly left the area and boarded the plane. It is unclear if she has had a change of heart since her ex-boyfriend’s airport gesture.