Gifted China PhD holder who went from Wall Street to slums sees light at end of tunnel after 16-year homeless hell in New York
- Life of young academic ‘genius’ falls apart after messy US divorce
- Viral online video detailing plight sees university alumni rally round
Help is finally at hand for a highly-educated, former Wall Street software developer from China who fell upon hard times and has been sleeping on the streets of New York for the past 16 years.
The fortunes of Sun Weidong could be about to change after a video clip telling his story went viral online and was seen by fellow alumni of his alma mater, Shanghai Fudan University, who have persuaded him to move into a temporary shelter.
Sun, 54, who has a PhD degree and was hailed as a genius earlier in his life, captivated mainland social media earlier this month when his story was shared in a video filmed by another man from China who does business in New York, Jiupai News reported.
In the viral video, Sun says he is originally from the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu.
An academic high achiever, he was recruited by a genius class at Fudan University to study physics in 1985 while only in his first year of high school.
After graduating from the university with a bachelor’s degree, he went to the United States where he obtained a master’s and a PhD degree.
Sun then went to work on Wall Street as a software engineer for two years, a job he said paid him a salary of more than US$100,000 a year.
However, his life began to spiral out of control after a difficult divorce and he began moving from job to job.
Sun, who is a US citizen, said he developed depression years ago and has also been suffering from other mental health problems.
“I suffer from delusions. I don’t know what is true and what is fake,” he was quoted as saying.
Since 2007, when he started sleeping rough, Sun has received help mostly from local churches. He said he sleeps in internet cafes or subway stations.
“My life is bad. In the past, I managed to cope with all life’s hardships. But now, winter is really tough for me,” he said.
The liaison office of Fudan University alumni association in New York has confirmed to the media that Sun is a graduate of the university.
A number of alumni volunteers have offered Sun help while a WeChat group with 200 alumni members has been formed to discuss further assistance for him.
Sun said he had only returned to China once in the past three decades and rarely contacted his family.
A former school classmate, surnamed Liu, told Red Star News that Sun had been an elite student with extraordinary academic abilities.
“He hasn’t been in touch with his family for at least 10 years. Before he lost contact with his family, he said he was doing a ‘sensitive’ job. We thought he was living decently abroad,” Liu said.
“Seeing him in the recent video, we were all astonished and felt sorry about his predicament.”
An official from Sun’s hometown of Jiangyin in Jiangsu province said they were preparing documents to help him return to China.
“We had a telephone conversation with him in our dialect. He was weeping. Apparently, he is missing home very much,” the official was quoted as saying.
In a video released on January 7, sporting a new coat and neat haircut, Sun expressed his gratitude to the public.
“I’ve experienced dramatic changes in my life that led me to this point. I thank all the people who cared for and helped me over recent days,” he said.
“Thank you for refreshing my spirit and helping me restart my life,” Sun added.
But not everyone was sympathetic to his plight.
“He is an American citizen. Why bother sending him back to China? No government in China at any level should be willing to spend our taxpayers money to support a foreigner,” one person said.
However, another online observer said: “Welcome back to China, Dr Sun. I hope you can make contributions to our motherland in physics.”
Last year, a Chinese man who lived illegally in the US for three decades after abandoning his wife and child in Shanghai, returned to the country thanks to help from Chinese expatriates in New York.
