Every year when Chinese Valentine’s – aka QiXi Festival – rolls around, English-language WeChat accounts publish long articles about the holiday’s origins using the same, boring graphics of a boy and a girl in front of a moon on a bridge of birds. Click here if you really want to learn the story behind QiXi.

This year, instead of retelling that myth, Jingkids is sharing some epic real-life love stories.

A modern day love story that is testament to our digital age, Anna Hartley and Charles Pellegrin met on OkCupid. The couple recently welcomed their baby girl. This is their story.

Shu Qi was intrigued by Jacob Wang when she decided to buy some wine from his TMall store. After chatting online for 33 days and their first date, they knew they were meant for each other. This is their story.

Evelyn Figueroa and Oliver Rosenthal‘s family grew in Beijing when they welcomed their baby girl Eline. Here’s the story of the whirlwind romance that brought this couple to Beijing.

Elizabeth Tucker and Kelli Cochran’s story prove that love happens even when you’re not looking for it. The happy couple are now raising a baby girl together in Beijing. Here’s how they met and how their love blossomed.

Svetlana is a Russian native who spent most of her life in Ukraine, while Carlos is from France. From the moment they met, they knew they were meant for each other. This is a story of love at first sight.

Images: Courtesy of interviewees, pexels

Valentine’s Day is here again, and we want to celebrate the thing that makes us feel alive – love, that many-splendored thing that’s better than ice cream and comes in all shapes and sizes.

Today we celebrate a couple of newlyweds who weren’t about to let a little global pandemic stand in the way of their destiny.

Jim Tsai (36) and Jen Fornek (33) are picture-perfect modern expats. Highly educated, successful, open-minded, and adventurous. They had unknowingly been circling around each other for years, living in the same cities and working as engineers for the same company but somehow never actually meeting. That is until fate intervened one night in Ulsan, Korea. Jen was being transferred there and was on her go-see trip. According to their wedding website, what followed was destiny fueled by ice cream and soju.

“Jen took a one-week business trip to Ulsan in September 2015. As luck would have it, she came down with a nasty cold just days before the trip. Surviving on decongestants, Jen was meeting the team and learning about the new place she would soon call home. Part of that ‘learning’ meant an inaugural trip to Lighthouse, a local watering hole the expat crew frequented for happy hour. Jen wasn’t feeling great, but she also has serious FOMO, so she agreed to go for one drink…As Jen was about to leave, in strolled Jim with a soft-serve ice cream cone in hand. Who was this guy? … One drink turned into a group dinner where Jim conveniently sat next to Jen and showed off his Korean BBQ skills. The soju was flowing and so was the conversation. Brimming with liquid courage, the entire group decided there was only one thing left to do… karaoke!! After just one night, the chemistry was instant and undeniable, but Jen was still months away from actually moving to South Korea! Luckily that wasn’t going to stop Jim. Over the next three months, he made communication a priority, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, while Jen bounced from timezone to timezone until she finally landed in Korea – Dec 31, 2015 – ready to kick start a new year and a new adventure with Jim by her side!”

Fast forward to 2019 and they were living together in Texas when Jim suggested they take a bike ride.

“I was a bit surprised because Jim isn’t big on physical activity that doesn’t involve golfing, but I was here for it!” says Jen. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating and it started to rain. Jen suggested turning back but Jim was insistent. Soaking wet and admittedly a little angry, Jen reached into her bag when they stopped at a secluded spot for a rest. As she looked up Jim was holding a ring box. “My initial reaction was a combination of ‘oh my gosh this happening!’ and ‘oh, now this whole bike ride in the rain is starting to make sense.’”

They began planning the wedding in Jen’s hometown of Chicago but by May 2020 Covid had been declared a national emergency, so they made the decision to err on the side of caution.

“Everything that couldn’t be refunded was rebooked for September 2021. Surely in a year and a half, we would be able to have our wedding as planned,” Jen says with a sarcastic laugh.

A few weeks later they found out they were being sent to a project in Beijing.

“We decided that even without the pomp and circumstance of a big wedding, it was important to us to be legally married before the move. So, on our original planned wedding date, we eloped…[with]just our immediate families and a few very close friends.  And to be honest, even though the day wasn’t what we had originally planned, it was still a dream.”

A year later with Covid still underway and the new wedding date approaching, the couple decided not to delay any further. With family support and an excellent wedding planner, they made arrangements for the big day from the other side of the world. They negotiated with work for the time off, got vaccinated, made sure all their guests were vaccinated, and flew home knowing that at the very least they would need to do a three-week quarantine upon return – if they were allowed to return at all.

Was it worth the risk? “That moment – Jim waiting at the end of the aisle, my father at my side, my extremely talented brother singing, surrounded by all of our family and friends who couldn’t be there in July 2020 and whom we hadn’t seen in well over a year – it was a moment, at times, we thought we might never experience. But now, it is a moment we will never forget.”

They returned to Beijing for quarantine. “It was not the honeymoon we had envisioned. Jokes aside, we were happy to be able to quarantine together in the same room. There were some logistical challenges. We were both back to work during the quarantine period, so we had to coordinate our calendars to avoid scheduling/joining Zoom meetings at the same time. There were also occasional phone calls taken from the bathroom, the only place to get any separation/privacy.”

Throughout the entire process, they have kept their sense of humor. When I asked what the biggest surprise about marriage was they explain, “I don’t think either of us expected to get married twice, to the same person, during a global pandemic.”

They now look forward to traveling as newlyweds once borders reopen and eventually starting a family together. As for other expat couples attempting to plan a wedding from across the ocean, Jen warns, “don’t do it… especially not during a pandemic! But if you can’t [avoid it], my biggest advice is to give yourself ample time and do not be afraid to ask for help.”

Happy Valentine’s day to all the newlyweds and soon-to-weds!

Keep Reading: Ayisha & Ben’s Teenage Romance Is Literally a Walk in the Park

Images: Jen Fonek

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and we want to celebrate the thing that makes us feel alive – love, that many-splendored thing that’s better than ice cream and comes in all shapes and sizes.

Today we celebrate young love; the butterflies-in-your-stomach thrill of a first kiss and sweet innocence that only comes with teenage romance.

17-year-old Ayisha noticed Ben Aurel right away the first time they met. It was the beginning of 2020 and she was on her look-see trip visiting the German Embassy School of Beijing, where Ben is a student. He said hi and asked where in Germany she was from. She answered and then moved on with the rest of the tour, but she remembered him because she thought “he was good-looking.”

Funnily enough, Ben didn’t actually remember her from that first encounter. “That year we had many, many visitors – some stayed for days and others for months. She was only there for that day so I didn’t really remember her.” It wasn’t until November of that year when Ayisha started school, that she would really make a mark on him.

Ben shares, “One of her best friends had some trouble with one of my friends, so we met up after school to talk about it and started hanging out. We were also the only three students in Chinese class where she teased me about my bad pronunciation all the time.”

After a few weeks of getting to know one another and staying over at each other’s homes, Ben announced casually one day that he had told his parents that his girlfriend would be having a sleepover that night. The label made things official.

Sleepovers were rather common for Ayisha back in Germany, where many of her best friends were boys. So while spending the night at Ben’s place was no big deal for her family, Ben’s parents laid down some rules: Separate beds and no locked doors. These rules have never been broken.

“In Beijing, there aren’t that many places to go where you don’t have to spend money. Solana is one of our favorite spots because there’s actually spots where you can just hang out without buying stuff,” Ben tells us. Ayisha adds that “it’s also right next to Chaoyang Park where we take walks.”

Walks are one of the ways they like to spend their time together, and one of Ayisha’s special memories of their relationship. “We have so many special moments together it’s hard to choose just one, but I remember going on a walk [around their residential compound]very, very late at night, around 3am. We just talked and it was really nice.”

For Ben, their recent shared family holiday is a cherished reminiscence. “Our families have gotten quite close and we ended up spending New Year’s together in Sanya. By luck, we ended up on the same flight back and sat next to each other.”

Ben carries Ayisha’s little sister

Another thing that he treasures from Ayisha is a Miami Heat basketball jersey that she got him to replace the one she didn’t like – which admittedly hurt his feelings a little. He rarely wears it because “it’s precious.” Ayisha loves the giant stuffed panda that Ben got her for her birthday.

What makes the two of them work? According to Ayisha, “We get each other’s humor. And now that we’ve been together a while, he can be very caring and thoughtful. If he sees that I’m sad, he’ll come and give me a hug or a kiss on the cheek. He’s always cheering me up.”

The adolescent pair just passed the one-year anniversary mark. “One year and five days” at the time of writing, to be exact, and things are looking good. When asked about their upcoming Valentine’s Day plans, they had none, though their class is getting together on the day to sell roses and raise funds for their prom. Let’s hope they raise enough to make it a memorable one!

I’ll show you all of the places I’m dreaming of. I’ll take you to the ocean, I’ll bring the sun. We are 17, we have just begun. ~ Ellie Gouling, “Animal”

KEEP READING: What’s It Like To Be in a Throuple?

Images: Ayisha and Ben Aurel

Every year when Chinese Valentine’s – aka QiXi Festival – rolls around, English-language WeChat accounts publish long articles about the holiday’s origins using the same, boring graphics of a boy and a girl in front of a moon on a bridge of birds. Click here if you really want to learn the story behind QiXi.

This year, instead of retelling that myth, Jingkids is sharing some epic real-life love stories.

Shenyang-born Shu Qi was intrigued by Jacob Wang from the moment she bought wine from a TMall store he and his friends owned. She said his unique sense of humor came through in their online banter. In fact, she was so intrigued that she hopped on a high-speed train to Beijing, Jacob’s hometown, to surprise him in person, a mere 33 days after they first exchanged words and began chatting online via QQ (this was a time before WeChat, if you can imagine it).

“The instant I saw him, I knew I would marry him,” Shu declared. A week later, she met his parents – they were shocked, to say the least – and within a year they were, as she had predicted, married.

That first conversation was so fundamental to their connection that Jacob even saved a screenshot of it and presented it to Shu in a homemade video message when he arrived at the airport in Detroit. He had uprooted his entire life in Beijing to move to Michigan where Shu had just launched her career in education. “If this is not love, I don’t know what is,” Jacob had posted on his WeChat Moments along with a photograph of dozens of suitcases at the Beijing airport before he embarked on the life-changing flight. In 2017, their son Valiant (they call him Val) was born in Oxford, Michigan.

When asked what was the most romantic thing that Shu has ever done for him, Jacob said, “She baked me a cake.” He is quick to explain that though it sounds simple, baking is anything but simple for Shu, as she tends to get distracted by the mess and get caught up cleaning while the meal is burning on the stove. So the fact that she even attempted, and rather successfully baked a cake for Jacob’s birthday, meant the world to him.

Shu’s cake to Jacob says, “I love you berry much”

The last time the family was in the US was before the pandemic swept across the globe. They had returned to China to visit Val’s grandparents when the virus hit, and after seeing how badly it was affecting the US, they made the decision to stay in Beijing. They enrolled Val in an international school, and have since remade their lives in the capital. Shu is currently the president of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), where she leads a weekly book club (they are currently reading How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids) and Jacob has resumed management of his own TMall store.

“My life is richer because she’s in it. Wherever she is, is the most romantic place to me,” Jacob answers, when I ask him where the most romantic place is for them. Almost embarrassingly, Shu answered similarly in our separate interview, “This is a little bit lame but can I say, wherever he is.”

It gets even better. When I asked for the three things they love most about each other, Shu’s first unabashed response was “the sex.” Jacob’s was “She’s kind at heart.”

Their own respective sense of humor was another quality they appreciate about each other. For Shu, Jacob’s handiness around the house is also part of why she loves him.

Though the couple has made the most of their time here in the capital, they expect to return to the States soon, where they are also hoping to expand their family, as well as move to Connecticut for better school choices.

KEEP READING: Going “Tarps Off!” With Children’s Storybook Author Curtis Dracz

Images: Shu Qi