No Time for ‘Marry Me’: Train Couple’s Fleeting Rendezvous Warms Hearts Across China

This past week at the office, one of the biggest — and most moving — love stories to come across my desk came just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s the story of the train couple Hao Kang and Lei Jie, a pair who have such difficulty meeting each other that the man, Hao, compared the chance of even seeing Lei while on the job with winning the lottery.

He’s a freight train driver who works at Yulin Station in Shaanxi province (where they’re both from), while she’s a train attendant on a line that stops every day at Yulin Station at 12:37 am. Sometimes they won’t see each other for months. And when they do, it usually happens when she’s standing at the entrance gate on train where she works, which means less privacy and little time during the stop.

Both had to work during the recent holidays, and Hao decided to surprise his girlfriend at the Yulin Station with a special Chinese New Year’s gift — a diamond engagement ring.

Yet because her train arrived to the station late, due to snow, and she got transferred to a different carriage that evening, Hao lost a lot of time in trying to find her for this crucial meeting. And when he did, they only got 112 seconds together, not even enough time to utter the most important words for a marriage proposal: marry me.

This couple and the extraordinary tale of their fleeting rendezvous, moved so many people, turning them into one of the most popular holiday stories in China.

Want to watch it all unfold? See the video on China Daily with English subtitles or, if you’re in China, view the original at China Central Television.

Have you heard about this train couple from Shaanxi province? What do you think about their love story?