Wang Qi, who has been unable to leave India after accidentally crossing into the country in 1963, is expected to make the long-awaited trip back home today.

Indian Ministry of External Affairs has recently informed Wang and his family in India that they had handled their request for his passports and promised to issue departure permit as soon as possible.

As planned, Wang and his son is expected to depart New Delhi on Friday.

Being away from home for over five decades, Wang said what he dreamed the most of his hometown's specialty noodles. 

Wang was a surveyor with China’s People’s Liberation Army when he mistakenly entered India. As the Sino-Indian war ended in 1963, he lost his way and crossed the border. The Indian authorities captured him and  imprisoned him for seven years for espionage.

Wang has been spending the following 47 years in a remote village in South India ever since he was released from prison. 

From 1977, Wang has been trying to get a permission to leave India and return to China to meet with his extended family — three brothers and two sisters — in Shaanxi Province but has never been allowed by the government, as they denied him official Indian documents and citizenship, according to the BBC. 

It was not until last month that Wang and his experience has been unveiled by the media, after being trapped abroad for over a century. 

This issue has been widely reported by Chinese media too and the development of the case has drawn wide attention. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang revealed that in 2013, Chinese embassy in India had issued a 10-year Chinese passport to Wang, adding “with joint efforts of China and India, and respecting the will of Wang Qi himself, the case will be properly solved.”

Knowing that the man in his 80s is coming back to the homeland, Chinese netizens are hailing his return, with most of them praising his decades-long persistence, sympathizing with his yearning for a long-awaited family reunion.