It all started at the Summer Palace...
Melanie and Jonathan met in Beijing, China, while attending teacher training before spending a year teaching in public schools in Shenzhen, China. Melanie remembers first meeting Jonathan at the Summer Palace where she introduced herself and Jonathan wasn’t particularly friendly. Jonathan doesn’t remember this meeting! They do agree, however, that they lived on the same floor in the dormitory and quickly became friends. They were good friends while living in Shenzhen and traveled together to different places around the country – including Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tibet.
They kept in touch for several years after that but did not begin dating seriously until August, 2008. After not seeing each other for about two years they had a reunion in Durham, North Carolina (where Melanie was attending graduate school) and it was love at Nth sight!
While Jonathan attended Johns Hopkins SAIS for his Master’s degree and Melanie continued to work on her Ph.D. at Duke University, they were in a long-distance relationship but were grateful for their student schedules so they could have long weekends and holidays together. In 2010 Jonathan moved to Durham and they adopted two cats – Sydney and Kashgar. Less than a year later they got engaged!
They like to think their story is the new standard for boy-meets-girl stories!