That is the distance from Tsingtao to New York . . .

By any measure, the odds of Joy and Henry encountering, let alone meeting, each other were slim. Yet they did so all the same.

A decision to study a world away from home led Joy to make the 7,000 mile journey to New York.

A decision to study Mandarin led Henry, half a decade later, in September 2019, to strike up a conversation with the cute girl sitting next to him in macro economics class (the most romantic subject).

The rest, as they say, is history.