--- title: Friends: Man in Beijing Lives Life Like Character on Show description: Including a son named Joey and "Baywatch" tapes. canonical: https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-11T20:59:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:19:38.710Z og:title: This Man Is Living Life Like He's a Character on 'Friends' og:description: Including a son named Joey and "Baywatch" tapes og:url: https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Man Is Living Life Like He's a Character on 'Friends' twitter:description: Including a son named Joey and "Baywatch" tapes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Man Is Living Life Like He's a Character on _Friends_ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 11, 2015 8:59 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker May 11, 2015 8:59 PM UTC Du Xin is doing his best to live in an episode of _Friends_. His wife’s name is Rachel, his son’s English name is Joey and even as a toddler he can already ask, “How you doing?” in a passable Matt LeBlanc accent. When Du goes to work, he tells [i-D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RwDi1wtz7Y), it’s to a Central Perk coffee shop knock-off that he created in Beijing. And when he goes home at night, it’s to an apartment decorated just like Joey and Chandler’s place—complete with VHS copies of _Baywatch,_ a.k.a. the roommates’ favorite TV show. Du, who prefers to go by the name Gunther, discovered _Friends_ after a bad break-up. He quickly became obsessed with the show and the valuable lessons about life and love that he felt the sitcom was trying to impart upon its audience. He eventually quit his job to open the coffee shop and found a woman who didn’t mind his obsession (probably because he insists on treating her how Chandler treated Monica). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/"},"headline":"This Man Is Living Life Like He's a Character on Friends","datePublished":"2015-05-11T20:59:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:19:38.710Z","description":"No one told him life was gonna be this way","url":"https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","Friends"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3853679/beijing-man-lives-friends-television-show/","name":"This Man Is Living Life Like He's a Character on Friends"}}]}] ```