Question: objects Shen Wei's office

[china_shop]

Anyone have a theory about who the bust in the corner is of?

Also, I just noticed there's a bookshelf built into the front of the desk -- that's so cool!


Screencap of Shen Wei's office. (Click through for bigger version.)

Comments

[mecurtin]

This is one of the least STEM-like offices I've ever seen.

The bust is a 17th or 18th C European. Research continues.

[china_shop]

Hee! I know, right? He's so artsy.

Ooh, thanks!

[riventhorn]

It is also a massive office. Every Professor's office I have been in is like a closet. And he needs about 500% more books to make me believe he's an academic.

[china_shop]

Maybe all his books are in ebook format... oh, wait. *g*

I wonder if the size of the office is a TV thing or a Chinese academia thing... I mean, ot1h, the apartments in Friends are ridiculously huge given their jobs (to use a cliched example), and otoh, professors in China are very high status...

[riventhorn]

I really want fic of him trying to use the power point projector after Li Qian leaves. :D

And I was wondering that too, if professors in China get nicer offices in general.

[china_shop]

I really want fic of him trying to use the power point projector after Li Qian leaves. :D

LOL! Wouldn't he just recruit another assistant? I imagine they'd be lining up! Maybe Jiajia?

[riventhorn]

That's true, he would have many eager volunteers!

[firestar]

I always figured Jiajia took over, but that might be because she's the only other recurring student we see.

[asya_ana]

LOL I was just thinking, he must be the actual chancellor.

[riventhorn]

Right? It's palatial.

[firestar]

Right? There's space available on every single shelf.

[extrapenguin]

IDK, I've observed there being space available on professoral shelves in reality! Books tend to accumulate with time, so the ones who've been professors with professoral offices for less than a year or two tend to have space on their shelves. The ones who've been professors for over a decade, OTOH, have double-stacked overflowing shelves. It might simply be that Shen Wei's book collection hasn't made the jump to take up all the space a professor's book collection is afforded.

[trobadora]

There's also the infamous ZYL Book Plot, during which we learn Shen Wei recently donated a bunch of books! So maybe he deliberately made more space for new books.

[extrapenguin]

Indeed! Though given that he was in search of old books, I assume those were from his background reading of "oh gods WTF happened when I was asleep and were is Kunlun???"

[trobadora]

Shen Wei had a lot to catch up on! He probably went through insane numbers of books during all those years. :D

[firestar]

Ahh. Give him time, then. XD

Eureka!

[mecurtin]

I cropped out the bust and enhanced the image in photoshop:



I believe this is a copy of a bust of Homer by Giuseppe Pisani:



What do you guys think? It makes ZERO sense, of course, but nothing about Shen Wei's academic career makes sense. Where's his lab? How can he do science if he's writing by hand?

Re: Eureka!

[no_detective]

oh wow, amazing find!!!

...okay, SEVERE metaphoric stretch, but: the odyssey is about finding the way home to a loved one after the war. granted, odysseus travels for 20 years instead of 10,000 but hey, who's counting when you're practically immortal.

OR, more likely: they just used whatever bust they had on hand. #setrecycling

Re: Eureka!

[mekare]

That actually makes sense abit? Kind of the same sense as him having a painting of Jesus outside his office (sacrifice for the greater good anyone?)

Re: Eureka!

[china_shop]

*applauds* Great detective work, thaaaank you! Also, hee! Random bust is random. :-)

Re: Eureka!

[trobadora]

Excellent detective work! :D

[lynndyre]

Maybe his department moved into the old lit building??? I mean, the paintings and Grecian naked statue don't quite scream biochem, to me.

...but also I want fic of laboratory disaster student Shen Wei, because if he can't work a projector I'm very confused how he managed genetics labwork.

[china_shop]

Charmed his lab partners into doing the techy bits, and made up for it by being super-smart and diligent in the write-ups? ;-)

[lynndyre]

The second half of that he's doing on purpose, the 'charming his lab partners' half he does just being Shen Wei XD

[extrapenguin]

He's a relatively new professor, so they just stuffed him into the only available office, which just happened to have belonged to some chair of a just-abolished Western Classic Lit department, and Shen Wei then never redecorated? IDK. Or it's secretly a shared office with someone from the lit department who spends all his time running around campus recruiting people to study Greek lit.

[lynndyre]

There's also a fishtank, out of sight behind ZYL in this shot. Are they Shen Wei's fish? Did they come with the office??

[china_shop]

Maybe they're Yashou!

(Every time I watch the scene where he's healing himself in ep 2, and the camera pulls back to reveal the fishtank, I think, "Ohhh, the fish are watching! They know everything!" and then start wondering about Fish Yashou.)

[lynndyre]

.....would read.

There must be so many Yashou we never saw, though! I mean, the Crow, Flower, and Snack tribes(sorry, couldn't resist)- but then Da Qing and his girlfriend don't hang around as a tribe, and there must be loads of others, especially with how diverse the Dixing powers are.

...maybe the Fish Yashou had a booth at the invisible flea market.

[china_shop]

...maybe the Fish Yashou had a booth at the invisible flea market.

LOL!

*tries to decide whether said booth would be located in a pond or not*

[mekare]

*howls with laughter*

The All-Knowing Fish YASHOU

[china_shop]

UNQUESTIONABLY!

One day ZYL will find out and headdesk forever that he didn't just call them in as witnesses. *g*

[extrapenguin]

He's a professor of bioengineering/genetics, right? Obviously those fish are what he does genetics research on! He does fish genetics and then the ones that get to retire go to the fishtank in his office.

[china_shop]

Ha! Retiree goldfish. I hope the genetic experiments are about extending lifespans. (Oh, hey, they could totally be! I mean, what semi-immortal in love with a mortal hasn't wanted to fix that? :-)

[extrapenguin]

Well, the elixir of youth is always something popular with funding agencies! My personal headcanon is that Shen Wei's genetics research is something unrelated to Dixing, Zhao Yunlan, or the like. Though the book we see him own at home – Mapping the Human Genome – would imply that he's at least somewhat dabbling/keeping up with human genetics, and might've sequenced some Dixingian genomes on the sly.

[qwerty]

I'm inclined to think when they showed the newly minted Professor Shen his new office, he took a look, blinked a little, "it seems a little small?" and everyone fell over themselves, "oh no no no, there was a mistake, that's not your room!" And so.

Also, going by Li Qian's Adventures in The Secret Lab, Science is achieved by looking at a whiteboard and magically coming up with formulas.

(hi. hauled back into fandom unexpectedly after a long hibernation. this show...)

[china_shop]

he took a look, blinked a little, "it seems a little small?"

Hee! But he's so polite!

Also, going by Li Qian's Adventures in The Secret Lab, Science is achieved by looking at a whiteboard and magically coming up with equations.

Oh, absolutely! Trials, studies, etc, are wholly unnecessary! ;-)

(*waves* Welcome! \o/)

[abyss_valkyrie]

Hahaahah!!Anybody would fall over themselves to make him happy,I guess!

[trobadora]

That is such a lovely screencap. I'm going to save that. ♥

(His office is larger than my living room!)

[china_shop]

\o/

His office is probably the same size as my (huge, open plan) living room. :-)

[schneefink]

His office is huge!

At first I was very impressed by the desk doubling as a bookshelf, but when you are sitting at the desk and want a book it would be very impractical (and the books I would want to display as decoration are generally also the books I want to reread every once in a while.) Still pretty though.

[china_shop]

Maybe the books are all moralistic texts on how you have to work hard and be diligent to succeed in science/academia, and they're carefully placed where his students will see them? ;-)

[mekare]

Very Probably.

[china_shop]

Probably issued by the university.

[extrapenguin]

Moralistic texts mixed in with undergrad textbooks, I suppose. Stuff that he doesn't need himself, but could be useful to students seeking his help.

[shirasade]

Generally, the art in that office is... eclectic. And tehre's at least 4 lamps.

[china_shop]

TV world is always full of lamps, though! I used to notice that a lot in White Collar. :-)