Wei Dongyi, one of China’s most famous mathematicians, recently went viral for his unkempt looks and extremely frugal lifestyle, reportedly living on just 300 yuan ($40) per month.
It’s safe to say that China has no shortage of math geniuses, but one among them stands out both for his prowess as a problem solver and his unusually frugal lifestyle. Born in 1991, Wei Dongyi showed amazing potential in the field of mathematics from a very young age, but he only started making news headlines in China during his high school years, when he won gold medals with perfect scores in the 49th and 50th International Mathematical Olympiads. His achievements allowed him to enroll at the prestigious Peking University without taking the infamous gaokao college exam, and he later became a respected teacher there. But, despite his fame as a math genius, Dongyi often attracts attention because of his simple way of life and modest looks.
In 2021, Wei went viral as “the ugliest teacher at Peking University” after a video of him sporting uncombed hair, crooked teeth, and modest clothing went viral on Chinese social media. Holding a large bottle of water and a plastic bag with steamed buns, the math whizz awkwardly answered the interviewer’s questions, often ending his sentences with “I don’t know what else to say.” People couldn’t believe he was a college teacher, let alone at one of the top two universities in the country, but then again, Wei Dongyi had always been a peculiar guy.
After becoming famous online, newspapers rushed to learn more about the unkempt genius. His cousin revealed that despite earning a decent wage at Peking University ($85,000), he lived on just 300 yuan per month, on principle alone. He cared about little else other than mathematics, preferring to listen to the radio in his free time, rather than watching TV, going online, or hanging out with friends.
As a testament to his frugality-oriented mentality, Wei Dongyi once refused financial compensation for helping a group of doctoral mathematicians with a complex model. They had been struggling with it for months, but after asking Dongyi for assistance, he quickly altered some of their equations, which resulted in the mathematical model obtaining a 96% passing rate. When they tried to pay him for his help, the math prodigy said, “It’s unnecessary to pay me for such an easy problem.” In the end, he agreed to have his transportation card renewed by the other mathematicians as compensation.
‘God Wei’, as the 33-year-old mathematician is sometimes called, recently attracted attention for finally setting up social media profiles on Douyin and RedNote. After posting a four-second-long introductory clip that showed him looking worryingly thin and missing part of his teeth, Wei got over 23 million subscribers in just five days. However, his family has made it clear that he has no plans of becoming some sort of influencer, and that he simply wants to share his passion for math with the world through social media.
“His world is remarkably pure – just numbers and formulas. Please don’t harm him. Just let him be,” one of Wei’s followers wrote online.
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