Staying Forever Young With Red Shirt Guy
It’s a Thursday night at The Patio and suddenly your worst fears have been realized: your BPL team unexpectedly lost in the final round, and to an MBA1 team that isn’t even in costume. Defeated, you recede to the darkness of the dance floor to commiserate with fellow fallen soldiers. Beer in hand, you look into the sea of undergrads and townies in search of a familiar face.
And then you see it — a beacon of hope, a shuffling machine, an orb of positivity. It’s none other than Red Shirt Guy.
You dance with him. You grab a selfie. You’re reminded to have fun.
For those of you not yet fortunate enough to have met him, Red Shirt Guy is the unofficial mascot of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is often spotted at our favorite (read: only) large bar in Palo Alto, The Patio, smiling and dancing the night away in his signature red silk shirt and white pants while taking the occasional break for a photo request. He is a constant in our Instagram feeds, our late night stories and most importantly our hearts.
And yet despite his ubiquity, we know little about the man behind the shirt. To right this wrong and show gratitude for the light that he has brought to our darkest dance floor moments, I set out on an unthinkable quest — to talk to Red Shirt Guy off of the dance floor.
And so my journey began. After shameless Slack spamming, I was able to track down his phone number and real name — Hugh Ching. For weeks via text, Hugh generously shared with me more about himself — his social media accounts, his friends and family and the many missions of his life.
After some rescheduling and a gracious offer to heal a friend’s injury, it was time to meet. True to form he asked that we meet on his turf — Thursday night at The Patio at 11pm. “Having known each other for 3 weeks, we are old friends now,” he wrote me in our final sign off before meeting.
After checking in with the bouncers (his friends) at his request, our hero rushed up to give me a big hug. I felt like I was meeting up with an old friend. We walked outside to talk while the bar’s usual Top 40 soundtrack thumped in the background as I asked my remaining questions about his life of intrigue.
Suffice to say, Hugh has lived a large life. Here is an incomplete but loving summary:
Above all else, Hugh identifies as an intellectual and everything that he has done connects back to this world view — yes, even his dancing.
In his own words: “Hugh and Joe, Hugh’s twin brother, followed their parents’ footsteps to become lifetime playboys at heart, with the parental advice that they should never go into business, but should become scholars.”
Hugh stated that his family, with longstanding roots in China, encouraged his academic pursuits as he went on to study at MIT where he received his SB, SM and ScD degrees. He is able to live life as an intellectual due to a brief but successful business stint with his brother.
Hugh is most known for founding the Post-Science Institute whose work is self-described as “the mainstream knowledge of the future and the foundation for the next-generation knowledge, as science has been the foundation of the knowledge of the past 500 years.” He has even been seen presenting on Post-Science in his signature red shirt at the Stanford School of Medicine.
He has a number of patents under his umbrella of Post-Science, including the infinite spreadsheet which he hopes will prevent future financial crises. He also holds a patent titled “Completely automated and self-generating software system,” which is described as the “theoretical discovery of DNA by identifying DNA as completely automated software programming with source code 0, 1, 2, and 3.”
Hugh has also dabbled in table tennis, and even wrote a book about the physics of the game. He generously gifted me a copy as well as offered to coach me. “I used to be the best coach in Fremont!” he added.
Hugh’s laundry list of accomplishments is probably best explained by his digital business card, if not through photos of him with his famous connections, including free-market champion Milton Friedman and Wu Ta-You, known as the father of Chinese physics.
But what is most unifying about Hugh’s life on and off of the dance floor is the Jumpulse Dance — the one we all love from late nights at the Patio
The dance alludes to his physics concept of Jumpulse, which he says represents a sudden change of force that differentiates humans from machines. Jumpulse needs its own article, but just know that I’d need to dig deep into momentum and Newton for that.
Hugh says that his iconic dance, seen in the club as early as 2011 via his YouTube page, is a representation of the Jumpulse motion. He and occasionally his similarly dressed student Chien Yi Lee (referred to as “Toy Dancing Doll”) go to bars and nightclubs around the Bay Area every Thursday, Friday and Saturday to demonstrate the dance and hopefully get others to join in the shuffle.
“The Jumpulse Dance has a very significant purpose; it attempts to solve the problem of human dancing. Most of the time unchoreographed or untrained human dancing looks ugly, while professional sports looks elegant, with its explosive motions,” he explained. “The purpose of the Jumpulse Dance is to design a dance that can make humans look beautiful in motion.”
The dance also is a critical part of Hugh’s youth-loving lifestyle. He believes that the dance can contribute to longevity and provides health benefits for the elderly, like improved balance and fall prevention.
Hugh is so convinced of the epigenetic powers of the Jumpulse Dance that he agreed to have his biomarkers tested by a service called GlycanAge. He excitedly gave me a copy of his results that claimed that his biological age is 48 rather than his true age of 76.
Tests aside, one thing is clear: Hugh is the embodiment of youth. As I have gotten to know Hugh over the last few weeks, I have learned not only about his zest for life, but also how much he loves the Stanford students he meets on the dance floor.
So let’s return the favor: On top of your usual selfie and shuffle requests, send Hugh a thank you note via his Facebook page. Or better yet, tell him how much you appreciate him in person.
Here are some kind words to kick us off. Thanks for keeping us forever young, Hugh:
