Do you remember that episode of The Big Bang Theory where the boys were playing with controlling their lights and then the some guys from Szechuan Province, China ended up controlling the lights in Sheldon’s apartment? (For reference, this is episode 9 of season 1: The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization.)
The Chinese geeks were what came to mind when I found out about a group of four young men from Fudan University; and unlike the characters in the TV series, these guys are for real. Wang Xinyu, Xu Jian, Zhang Kan, and Lu Yuanda have become celebrities in their country and have even been dubbed as the “Chinese Big Bang Theory” guys.
I am not surprised in the least bit. Someone was bound to do a Big Bang Theory thing one of these days…
They started out making videos of themselves giving “lectures,” called Room 5023 Lectures. Obviously, that’s the number of their room at the dormitory. Their room is typical of what you’d expect from four young men living together in school – messy, cramped, and cluttered. There’s something special about it, though – everything can be controlled remotely. In a dorm where there is no cable TV access, these men somehow have their own cable TV (thanks to a computer they configured). They also have all sorts of inventions lying around.
So what has made them famous (in China, at least)? I watched some of their video series on their web site i5023, and I have to admit I didn’t understand a thing despite the translation that Google Chrome offered me. It seems that they are having a lot of fun, though, and I actually found myself chuckling every now and then even if I didn’t understand a word they were saying. They’re definitely not Sheldon and Leonard, though!
I would really love to understand their videos. Anyone here speak/understand Chinese???