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Matt
and Shu-Lin growing up!
The Bride:
Shu-Lin was born in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia on Sunday, June 26, 1977. She spent the first 4 years
of her life in Malaysia before moving to England which accounts
for part of her strange accent. After 2½ years, her family migrated
to a small city called, Geelong, in Australia where she spent the next 7 years
of her life doing the triple jump, ballet, horse-riding, and learning to play
the piano. When she was 10 years old, she lived 6 months with her family in
Santa Monica, California enjoying trips to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm
as well as seeing as much of the US as possible. Then she returned to Australia
and attended Morongo Presbyterian Girls School for 3 years. At the age of 14,
she moved to Thailand with her father where she spent the next 4 years of her
life doing IB classes at the International School of Bangkok, learning Taekwondo,
taking photographs of wats, and eating alot of good Thai food. Following her
childhood passion of watching tv and films, she went to Barnard College in
New York City and graduated with a B.A. in Film Studies. She then went on to
work in the Education Dept of The Museum of Television & Radio and learnt
the essentials of crafting and restaurant week from her colleagues. During
her time at the museum, she met Matt who then whisked her away to Tokyo, Japan
where she currently teaches English to housewives.
The Groom:
Matt was born in Kyoto, Japan on Wednesday, July 2, 1975. From the age of 3,
he spent 4 years at a Buddhist nursery school learning his first few Japanese
words and memorising songs that he remembers to this day. This was followed
by 6 years at Notre Dame Catholic School and weekends learning English from
his mother. After 10 years in Japanese schools, he spent a year in Eugene,
Oregon with his Grandma Fay and Grandfather William where he tried to be an "all
American boy" doing boy scouts, football, baseball and basketball. He
then returned to Japan to attend high school at Canadian Academy in Kobe (2
hours from Kyoto) where he stayed the weekdays with his Japanese family, the
Mitanis. When he was 17 years old, Matt and his family stayed a year in Belgium,
where he ironically also went to an "ISB" like Shu-Lin -- International
School of Belgium that is. He followed his older brother Jon's footsteps and
went to Princeton University. During that time, he picked up Chinese, Korean
and a B.A. in Political Science. After college, he spent 1½ years in
Korea teaching English and editing for the journal, Asian Perspective, at the
Institute for Far Eastern Studies before starting on his PhD in Modern Japanese
History at Columbia University. In his third year of the program, he met Shu-Lin
and two years later convinced her to go to Tokyo where he is currently on a
Fulbright scholarship doing his dissertation research at Tokyo University. |
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