To Live and Love in Beijing: The Story of Jennifer and Li Wei

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Uprooting your life and moving to Beijing is a massive, scary undertaking. For many expats, it requires leaving behind friends, family, and any other sense of comfort or familiarity they know. While the city can be fickle, some transplants not only fall in love with the place, but with the people too. And specifically, one person. In this series, we’ll be talking to folks who have found love in the Capital, and ask them what it was like to meet their soulmate halfway across the globe.
If you’d like to share your love story, please email [e-mail]

What is your name and your spouse’s name?

My name is Jennifer Hyde Sachs and my husband’s name is Li Wei (李委)

Where are you both from?

I am from Baltimore, MD in the U.S. and my husband is from Beijing.

How long have you been together?

We have known each other since the spring of 1992 and we have been married for almost 19 years.

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Where and how did you meet?

We actually met the first time through his brother. I was working as a teacher at Beijing Polytechnic University, and Li Wei was helping his brother sell tickets to a rock show. They used to run a lot of shows together in the early 90s. It was an incredibly interesting time to be living in Beijing. When we first met, we were just acquaintances, so there weren’t really any sparks. And, since it was less than a year after I arrived in Beijing, I wasn’t exactly fluent in Mandarin, and he didn’t speak any English.

What was your first date?

I guess there were a few sparks that I hadn’t noticed when we first met because Li Wei found me after I had moved jobs and was working at the Kunlun hotel and asked me to dinner. I think I understood about 50 percent of what he was saying (and I am sure he was speaking VERY slowly), but somehow we managed to spend about 12 hours talking.

At what point did you realize, “this is the one for me”?

Actually it was that night when he quoted some lines from “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (I was an English lit major in university). It took us a few twists and turns and ups and downs, but eventually we got married and now have three beautiful boys, so it was worth the wait!

What do you love about each other?

I am not sure what he still loves about me as I can be pretty annoying at times! But, we work together and one of the things I still love about him is his incredible, superhuman ability to remain calm regardless of what is going on. I still remember years ago when our apartment was flooded and I had to go to work. Li Wei just grabbed a mop, and started cleaning up the mess while he whistled.

What can you tell us about falling in love in Beijing?

I often joke with my husband that I fell in love WITH Beijing before I fell in love with him, but really I do think the fact that I love living in Beijing made it easier to fall in love while in Beijing. If you feel awful about where you are it is going to be incredibly difficult to feel ‘in the mood’ for love.

Photos: courtesy of  Jennifer Hyde Sachs, Pixabay 

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