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.
At the risk of sounding cynical or jaded, it takes a special type of romantic to believe in love at first sight. For most of us, such a perfect world only exists in fairy tales. And yet, even the most hardened skeptic has to admit that sometimes fairy tales come true, and today’s couple is living proof.
Svetlana is a Russian native who spent most of her life in Ukraine, while Carlos was born in Peru but grew up in France. In truly international fashion, the two met in Tianjin. They’ve been together for a decade and recently welcomed the arrival of their daughter Mia. Talk about a love story of global proportions!
One fateful night ten years ago, Svetlana and Carlos both decided to go dancing with their friends, not knowing it would be a night that would forever change their lives. The couple met while clubbing in Tianjin and they pretty much remember the night the same way. “Oh, it was a love at first sight,” says Svetlana. “I was hanging out with my friends when I felt someone looking at me. I turned and I saw him, and that’s it, I think it just clicked! That night we danced, we talked, and he gave me his scarf when I was leaving, as it was cold and he wanted to protect me. His scarf had his smell that still gives me goosebumps.”
The night they met
Likewise, Carlos remembers, “I was in a club with my friends, looking at the people dancing. Then I saw that gorgeous woman standing, she looked at me and I thought to myself, ‘She has to be mine.'” At that moment, they knew that they’d found the one, and that they forever belonged to each other.
Shortly thereafter, Carlos texted Svetlana and asked her out for what would be their first date. The two went to a Spanish restaurant close to Svetlana’s home. “I was so nervous, I talked so much…. And in one moment he kissed me, and it felt so romantic, so gentle,” she remembers.
We asked the couple about some of their most memorable romantic gestures, however, they were hardpressed to come up with a single moment. “He did so many romantic gestures,” says Svetlana, “like proposing to me in a most romantic way, with Mariachi song – he couldn’t find Mariachi band so he found a violinist and asked him to learn a Mariachi love song that I like so much; he kissed me on the top of the Eiffel tower, which was my dream since I was a little girl – to kiss my future husband there; he made my wedding dream come true – having a wedding in a French Renaissance castle, and on and on and on! He is the best (and most romantic) husband ever!”
The couple truly enjoys a fairytale relationship that they’ve carefully cultivated with plenty of unconditional love. And for them, the best part about their relationship is that they’re going through everything together. Now that baby Mia is in the picture, their love’s grown even deeper and each day is a blessing.
KEEP READING: Mandarin Monday: Sweet Things to Tell Your Loved Ones This Qixi Festival
Images: Svetlana Ore
