From Fudan's Gifted Class to New York's Streets

Sun Weidong, now in his fifties, is originally from Jiangsu province in China and was once described as a genius. At 15, in his first year of high school in 1985, Fudan University recruited him into its class for gifted students to study physics. After earning his bachelor's degree at Fudan he went to the United States, where he completed a master's degree and a PhD.

He built a career as a software developer on Wall Street. The South China Morning Post attributes his later decline to the breakdown of his marriage, which it describes as a messy divorce in the United States.

After that he slept on the streets of New York for 16 years. The article gives few details of daily life during those years, and this account adds none.

Earlier this month, according to the SCMP, a video of him telling his story, filmed by a Chinese businessman who does business in New York, was widely shared on mainland Chinese social media and reported by Jiupai News. Fellow alumni of Shanghai's Fudan University saw it and persuaded him to move into a temporary shelter. The article does not say who the alumni were or give details of the shelter.

The SCMP reports that his circumstances may now improve and that he could return to mainland China, though it presents this as a possibility rather than a confirmed plan. Its headline speaks of a light at the end of the tunnel after sixteen years of homelessness. It does not cover his daily routine, where exactly he slept, or any work he did after the divorce.