Fluid mechanics and the art of rap

Like many of his fellow vehicle engineering students preoccupied with head-scratchingly difficult issues such as fluid mechanics and writing theses, Duo Lei strove mightily to adapt to his new surroundings in his first year as a college student.

That was in 2015, when Duo, born and raised in the city of Yining, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, moved to Beijing to study at the prestigious Tsinghua University. Majoring in vehicle engineering, he was the top scorer in science in the national college entrance examination of Xinjiang that year.

In addition to his academic prowess, something else set Duo apart. Away from textbooks, he devoted what little spare time he had to his great passion for hip-hop music, and in summer last year, aged 21, he decided to try to get others at Tsinghua in on the act by setting up a hip-hop fraternity.

"Few joined, and hip-hop culture remained a rarity at the university," Duo says.

However, within a few months things appeared to have changed when, at a graduate welcoming ceremony, Duo performed a song he wrote, Tsinghua Tao, with a fellow student, Su Han, who is studying for doctorate in biomedical engineering.

The song in Mandarin is a paean to the university, talking of its beauty, legacy and life there:

"Mountains to the west, ocean to the east.

Swirling seas over a barren land…

Throw a stone into the lake and it ripples,

The profs are gonna loop my rap."

"I wrote the song in the dormitory one night and based it on my life at Tsinghua," Duo says. "For me the university is like a big town in which I live and which inspires me."

When Duo floated the idea with his teachers of filming a video on the university campus featuring the song they immediately lent their support. The resulting video has been viewed more than 900,000 on the Chinese music streaming service NetEase Cloud Music, which has more than 400 million users.