21/06/2026
Tang Wei arrived in Changsha in early May with about 2,000 yuan, around $280, a tent, a suitcase, and his dog Bobo.
He was only 19, from Xinhuang County in China’s Hunan Province, and had recently secured a place at a vocational college in Changsha. Classes are set to begin in September, but because his family was struggling financially and also caring for his younger brother, Tang decided he would spend the summer working to pay for his own tuition and daily expenses.
So he became a food delivery rider.
For more than 10 hours a day, he worked around the city. But after buying basic sleeping gear and necessities, he could not afford rent. At first, he slept in a public park. Then troublemakers and heavy rain forced him to move beneath a bridge.
Through all of it, Bobo stayed with him.
Tang had raised Bobo since receiving him as a puppy from his grandfather. Even while he owned only a few sets of clothes, including his delivery uniform, he kept his dog beside him and shared his difficult life with him instead of leaving him behind.
His first week of delivery work brought in only 200 yuan, and half of that was reportedly spent compensating a motorist after his electric bicycle accidentally scratched a vehicle.
Then a reporter from the Changsha Evening News met him.
After the story spread online, people in Changsha began stepping forward with help. Residents and businesses donated money, food, and daily necessities. Animal welfare volunteers offered dog food and help caring for Bobo. A manager at a major manufacturing company then offered Tang a three-month temporary job guarding a storage facility, with free meals and accommodation so he could save most of his earnings for school.
That changed everything.
Tang says he loves literature, has written poetry, essays, novels, and screenplays, and hopes for a future connected to writing. But the line that stays with you most is what he said about Bobo.
“I need it more than it needs me.”
That is the part dog lovers understand.
Sometimes a dog is not just company.
Sometimes a dog is the rea*on a lonely person keeps going, the one familiar heartbeat beside them under a bridge, the one living soul that makes a hard life feel less empty.
Tang now says he will work hard, study hard, and one day repay the kindness shown to him by the people of Changsha.
A young man was trying to build a future with almost nothing.
And beside him, through rain, hunger, delivery shifts, and nights under a bridge, was the dog he refused to abandon.
