Literary Master 1983

Chapter 46 TV Room

“For example, international students from Europe and the United States have packed their bags and are determined to head to the Cambodian border immediately!”

"Then, the Japanese students said that they didn't know the situation yet, so they couldn't sign or donate money. They had to wait until they understood the situation before making any decisions."

Zhang Li said disappointedly: "Japanese people are really weird. They always do nothing when everyone is working together."

“The international students from Italy said that everything was the Americans’ fault and that they should go to the American Embassy to cause trouble first—but they are not the most interesting ones…”

"What else?" Zhang Li asked.

"The most interesting thing is that the international students from Switzerland actually set their sights on the 2800 yuan in donations they raised and demanded that the money be handed over to the Red Cross in Switzerland first!"

Zhang Li said, "Yu Qie, you know so much..." She was a little envious, "Only at Yenching University can you know so many new things about foreigners."

As they chatted, they arrived at the TV room, showed their TV room tickets and went straight in.

The TV room at Yanda University is a spacious but simple room with walls painted white or light green. There are several rows of long benches or wooden chairs in the room, as well as small stools or benches brought by students.

A black and white TV was placed in the front, on a high iron frame so that people in the back row could also see the screen. A piece of white cloth embroidered with lace covered the top of the TV.

The room was already packed with people, with some people even sitting on the floor in the front row. Yu Qi took a quick look and saw that there were not many foreigners, they were all Chinese.

This is a very hungry spiritual and cultural need that has not been met.

Oh no, where is my seat? Where is my big seat?
The air in the whole house was filled with the smell of kerosene stove smoke on clothes and the smell of food that came from nowhere, and the windows were covered with a thin layer of mist.

Yu Qie said, "Zhang Li, this... I didn't expect..."

Zhang Li understood what he meant and grinned at him: "Yu Qie, have you never watched TV? When the TV is about to start, no one has a seat. When the show gets exciting, you have to stand up!"

I haven't watched TV before? I used to watch it on a 8-inch K screen.

OK! Zhang Li doesn't mind, so let's continue watching.

The two of them walked directly to the outermost edge of the front row, intending to stand and watch, when they suddenly heard a loud shout: "Hey! You stepped on someone!"

people?
where?

"Oh, stop looking. Here!"

Yu Qie looked down: Shit, there were several people lying on the ground, wearing black cloth clothes. The pitiful light from the electric lamp flickered, casting their slanted shadows. I thought it was the anti-slip tape on the steps.

"Just step on me a few times. If you do it again I'll be angry... Don't you have any rules? First come, first served!" The man cursed and covered his face with his hands. He was afraid of Yu Qi's tall and strong man, so he tried his best to shrink to the ground, fearing that Yu Qi would step on him again.

"Hey! Don't step on it, don't..."

What about the future?

All I saw was that from the front row to the back, every row was packed with people, like a bush made of iron, and only at the end was there a gap for people to stand.

Finally, Yu Qie and Zhang Li squeezed to the very edge at the back, with Yu Qie standing and Zhang Li using him as a cushion.

"Zhang Li, can you see it?" Yu Qi asked.

Zhang Li stood on tiptoe and stared intently, "I can see it, my eyesight is very good!"

Yu Qi turned his head to look at the small TV at least three meters away from him. The TV seemed to be... "Yanjing brand". There might be an old antenna in the corner, extending crookedly towards the ceiling to receive signals.

Oh, it turns out that my eyesight is pretty good. When the show started, the whole room suddenly became quiet, and everyone stared at the small screen intently. The Man from Atlantis began to play.

This episode tells the story of medical staff who discovered a person with webbed hands, eyes like cat's eyes, skin that does not sweat, a body with amazing resistance to pressure, and a swimming speed faster than a dolphin... In short, they discovered a person who is only suitable for living in water.

This man had a severe head injury that caused him to have memory problems and he couldn't even remember his own name or origins. So the beautiful doctor gave him a nice name: Mike Harris.

The special effects and props were really eye-catching. When Mike was swimming in the seabed, he looked like a completely different person. It was probably because the actor in the original film couldn't swim.

But Chinese people nowadays are a little face-blind when it comes to foreigners. They can’t tell at all that it’s a stand-in acting, but instead they enjoy it very much.

Seeing the fake Mike's cool and graceful swimming style, everyone shouted, "Great, great!"

No wonder this movie didn't become a big hit in the United States. Once it came to China, it was a direct dimensionality reduction attack, and the streets were deserted. Beautiful women and handsome men, it's also a sci-fi movie. In China, even "Dream of Red Mansions" is still in preparation, and there are only a few episodes of the TV series.

How can "The Man from Atlantis" not be popular?

In this TV series, the glasses worn by the male protagonist Mike are called "Mike glasses" (also called frog glasses). This is what the energetic young men in the 1980s wore, paired with jeans and flight jackets. If possible, they would also carry a large speaker tape recorder.

The show also popularized another fitness sport: Frisbee. If you find an endless stream of Frisbee ladies 40 years later, you can blame Mike Harris.

There was a scene in the film where Mike came out of the water, wearing only a pair of yellow shorts, revealing his big, strong pectoral muscles... All the women in the TV room covered their eyes, spread their fingers, and peeked out through the cracks.

Of course the man would not avoid suspicion, he stared with eyes wide open, marveling in amazement.

Someone asked quietly: "Why doesn't this foreigner have chest hair? Isn't it said that all foreigners have chest hair?"

Another person replied: "It must have been shaved!"

"Foreigners shave their chest hair? Weird! Then... where is it?"

"I don't know, you are such a hooligan, I will arrest you!"

"I'm talking about armpit hair..."

Zhang Li also didn't dare to look at Mike Harris's big pectoral muscles. She turned her head and covered her eyes: "Yu Qie, is it over?"

"not yet!"

After a while, "Is it over now?"

"Not yet. Mike is walking on the beach, accompanied by a beautiful doctor, also wearing a swimsuit..."

"what!"

Zhang Li immediately opened her eyes and noticed that the actress was wearing a hot one-piece swimsuit. She pushed Yu Qie and said, "You closed your eyes too!"

If you don’t want to look at it, then don’t look at it. It’s just a one-piece swimsuit. Haven’t I seen anything similar?

Yu Qi helplessly turned his head away and didn't look.

I didn't expect that this kind of science fiction film with a strong sense of the times would be so popular.

After coming out of the TV room, Yu Qie suddenly thought that science fiction novels are actually a treasure trove of writing.

Especially now with the strong advocacy of the "scientific" spirit, a wave of science fiction has emerged both at home and abroad, but they ultimately blossomed into different works.

(End of this chapter)