What do an eccentric British detective, a cut-throat Washington pol and a bunch of nerds at Caltech have in common?

一个怪异的英国侦探、一个残酷的华盛顿政客，以及一帮加州理工学院的神经大条，会有什么共同之处吗？

They are characters in some of the most popular foreign TV shows in China.

他们都是中国热播的欧美剧中的人物角色。

Over the past five years, The Big Bang Theory alone has been streamed more than 1.3 billion times. To appreciate how much some young Chinese love the BBC series, Sherlock, step inside 221B Baker Street. That's Holmes' fictitious address in London as well as the name of a café that opened last year in Shanghai's former French Concession.

过去五年，仅《生活大爆炸》就已经被点击了13亿多次。要想知道中国年轻人有多喜欢BBC剧集《神探夏洛克》，那就去贝克街221B号看看吧——这不只是福尔摩斯小说中的伦敦地址，也是去年在上海法租界开张的一家咖啡店的名字。

Good luck, though, finding a table.

祝好运，但愿你能挤到一个座位吧！

"Business has been very good since the premier of the third season," says Eric Zhang, the café's twenty-seven-year-old owner. "People have to line up or make reservations in advance on Saturday and Sunday, otherwise they can't get a seat."

“第三季开播以来，生意就特别地好。”27岁的店主艾瑞克·张（音译）说。“周六周日的时候，顾客必须提前预约或排队等候，要不然是不会有座位的。”

Like many young people here, Zhang grew up reading the detective classics by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, translated into Chinese. Zhang says his father is a detective and used to share murder, smuggling and arson cases with him.

跟这里的许多年轻人一样，张先生也是读阿瑟·柯南·道尔的中文版侦探小说长大的。他说，他父亲就是一名侦探，经常跟他讲谋杀走私放火之类的案件。

"Actually, I aspired to be a policeman," says Zhang, "but I didn't pass the physical and opened a café instead."

“其实，我很想成为一名警察，可惜没能通过体能测试，所以只好开了这家咖啡店。” 张先生说。

The café – all wood and leather — is drenched in Sherlock paraphernalia. On the wall next to the bar are hand-written, Sherlock plot-lines. By the window sits a tableful of what is supposed to be Dr. Watson's medical equipment, including a microscope and old glass syringes retrieved from the basement of a Chinese hospital. On the bookshelves sit seemingly endless photos of Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Holmes in the series. Zhang explains the shrine-like treatment of the British actor.

这家木质皮革的咖啡店充满了夏洛克风格。靠吧台的墙上是手写的夏洛克台词；窗边的桌上有类似华生的药箱，里面有从中国医院得到的显微镜和旧玻璃注射器；书架上则赫然陈列着满满的本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇的照片，本尼迪克特在剧集中扮演了福尔摩斯的角色。张先生还特别解释了这位英国演员的优越待遇。

"To tell you the truth, girls are especially fond of him," says Zhang. "He has personal charm. It's irresistible."

“说真的，女孩子们都很迷恋他。他有着令人难以抗拒的魅力。”他说。

Indeed, nearly every customer here today is female. Tina Zhou, 25, works for a Chinese state-owned company. She says Cumberbatch – whose Chinese nickname is "Curly Fu," a reference to his hair — plays a great Holmes.

确实，今天来这里的几乎都是女性。25岁的周小姐在一家国企上班，她说康伯巴奇把福尔摩斯这个角色演得非常棒，因为卷发而在中国被昵称为“卷福”。